


Parker And Jones Are Big Bois

by Maclunkey



Series: Parker And Jones Are Big Bois [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkward Romance, F/M, Fanfiction, Humor, Slow Romance, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maclunkey/pseuds/Maclunkey
Summary: Peter goes to college and meets Michelle, a pretty girl, who won't stop reading her books. He has a crush on her, he is Spider-Man, he goes to college. That's it. What, you were expecting an elaborate description, full of useful details and information? I can't write those. No, seriously, I'm honestly sorry, I just can't. But here's a short section from the story. I hope it will do the trick, too:"Jesus, you know you can just leave any time, right?" came a voice from his right. Peter turned to the source of it and saw as the girl already turned back to her book, not showing any interest in whether he was gonna answer or not."What?" he asked back with a blank brain, still not even really processing what she just asked him."Look, I don't usually care if someone feels like sleeping on a class, but you've been trying to fight it for the last ten minutes and at this point, it's just painful to witness."Peter tried to recollect his thoughts as well as a little amount of dignity. Did she just insult him, or was this more of a result of a simple observation of hers? The fact that the pretty girl was talking to him, and that mere seconds ago he was still half-asleep, really didn't help him with his answer.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Parker And Jones Are Big Bois [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618666
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	1. Prologue

I originally posted this work on Wattpad (you can find it here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/208071845-freshmen-are-still-teenagers) about a week or so ago, but know I'm posting it here too, because I think AO3 has an amazing community. Anyway, this is the prolog I wrote for this story there:

Hello there!

So: before we start I have a couple of things to say. Bear with me, it won't be long. But actually, if you are not interested you can just skip it altogether, too – it won't affect the story.

First of all: this is a work in progress. I didn't really intend to release it before it was finished, but there is going to be a chapter in it about Christmas and another one about New Year's Eve, and I wanna time the release of those with the real-life holidays. So basically that's why I will start releasing the first, already-written chapters this week, so I won't be late. I know, it's absolutely unnecessary; most of you will read this story way later than it's published, but I still wanna do it. _(Well, this didn't really work out at the end, did it?)_

Now here comes part two, because I do love my creative freedom, and this means, that there might be a time where I will have to go back, to already-released chapters to rewrite some parts. I'm not thinking about anything mayor, but it could absolutely happen to smaller things, so my apologies in advance. If I do something like that, I will, of course, tell you about it, so you won't just completely miss the thing, especially if it's something important – but, as I said, it most likely won't be.

Moving on, this is actually my biggest writing project so far, so I'm really excited about it. I love writing it, I have most of the things planned out already, and this is very new for me because previously I was mostly (only) writing one-shots, and this is all so great. Not gonna lie, I'm a little amazed by myself. I didn't know I can stick with one story for more than 2000-4000 words...

However, I'm a freshman at college, and studying absolutely comes first (yes, I know how that sounds – go on, judge me) so I'm not sure how long will I drag this out. The first six-seven chapters I have planned out (as I've said) and those add up for a self-contained story, a story which I really wanna write, but I have many more ideas for continuations, so... We will see about those. I'm not promising anything.

Lastly, some technicalities: my mother language is not English, and if it's yours, you probably guessed that already. I would say my English is fairly good, but it could also be way, way better, so apologies to those whose is way, way better. There will be grammar mistakes.

The title of this story is also a work in progress. I love good, funny titles, but I just couldn't come up with any for this story, so I decided to leave this work-in-progress-one there. I might change it later, but now I'm actually thinking I'm gonna stick with it for good. It kinda grew on me.

The cover art is absolutely not mine, I can't draw at all. Really, the best car I can sketch literally looks like the Tesla Cybertruck. Anyway, I've found the picture here (https://www.deviantart.com/tinypunches/art/Upside-373910995) and if I will have time I will even ask the artist if I can use their work on this book. I know, I'm a saint.

Now I think that was it all. I really hope you will enjoy this story, but what I know is that I do for sure, and that's what really matters when you are writing, isn't it?

Have fun!

***

2019-12-20: All right, little update, already: The title has been changed from _Untitled College Spideychelle Story_ to _Freshmen Are Still Teenagers_. As much as I love the dumb simpleness of the old one, I think this new one suits the story's idea better.

2020-01-08: Okay, I changed up the second half of _Chapter 5: AcaDec Adventures_ a little bit. Nothing major as I promised, the outcome is still the same. It's mostly a rewrite of MJ's lines. It felt like she acted a bit out of character there, but now I'm much more pleased with her. Also, I'm still thinking about the title. I just don't seem to be able to settle on that one.

2020-01-24: All right, I changed the title again. It's _The Creator And The Campaigner_ now. Try and figure out what that refers to y'all. I don't think it's the final title though... It's kinda ridiculous how this is the thing that gives me the most headache about the whole story, isn't it? I hope I'm not confusing you with these changes, and sorry if I do. Anyway, I think I will just know when the right one clicks in, you know? Until then, _The Creator And The Campaigner_ it is.

2020-01-24: Okay, I gave a lot of thoughts to it, and now I got it for sure! The title of this story is _Parker And Jones Are Big Bois_ for good. It kinda tells you what this work is about, but even I don't really know what it actually means. Also, it's not too serious and it sounds good, so yeah... I think I finally found the title I love.


	2. Chapter 1 - Late from a Lecture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Summary? You don't have to write those on Wattpad. Anyway, I usually write a sentence-long "teaser-thing" at the beginning of my chapters, so I'm thinking I'm gonna consistently put those into this Chapter Summary slot.

The time was exactly 16:17 PM (the 24th of November, to be unnecessarily exact) and Peter was hurrying through the windy park of his college. Normally he would have appreciated this moment since it was one of the rare occasions when the place was almost absolutely empty of the thick groups of his fellow students who were usually occupying it, having an uncommon calmness, and beauty to it, but he didn't have the time for any of that at the moment. Typical...

Peter remembered the first time, he set foot on that grass at the end of August. Seeing all the other students greeting each other again, after a long Summer vacation, or – when it came to freshmen, like him – for the first time, felt scary and exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Now, more than three months later, he learned his way around the college and could have easily passed through the park with the look of a confident veteran of the place, if he wasn't late already. But for now, he had to go with the scared-lost-puppy-style, in order of efficiency, as he pulled his hat even lower on his ears, to protect them from the cold.

It wasn't his fault, he was late. Well... Wasn't entirely at least, for sure. Ned – his roommate, and bestest pal, ever since they met each other during moving in – needed help with the building of his new lego Star Destroyer. Come on, it was a two-man job, and he couldn't let him down in a situation like that. He had no regrets, even though he hated to be late because the people who were late were left with only the worst seats in the back of the auditorium, from where you couldn't tell what was written on the blackboard if its size was smaller than two inches – so basically none of the words.

Peter entered the building and headed for room 501 when a coffee machine caught him off guard. It was around 16:20, he already had two classes before, and he drank nothing which could even remotely remind him of coffee – besides he was already late, anyway. Yes, this was definitely a good idea. He needed a little boost to help him not to fall asleep, while he was trying to make some meaning of the professor's handwriting. So he changed course, put a coin into the coffee machine, waited for the product to be made, and finally headed towards his original destination with the prize on his hands.

There was an upside of being late from a lecture too, though: literally nobody gave any second thoughts to you. You arrived when you wanted, and you left when you wanted, and Peter just loved that. He stepped into the auditorium and looked down at the blackboard. The professor just finished filling up the first one, so he really didn't miss out on a lot. Now he had to decide where to sit, which was a crucial part of his operation: he saw a couple of empty seats in the better side of the room, but there was no way, he was gonna climb through a dozen people just to get those. He just had to take one of the last lines, which were almost all empty as always.

He finally chose the second one, which was occupied by only one girl, who wasn't even paying attention to the class but read a book instead. She was pretty, actually, now that he gave her a second glance. And she was all by herself. In an ideal world, Peter could have just sat right next to her, and start a conversation with some clever one-liner. However, he knew, that it would have been really weird, to sit right next to the only other person in an all-empty line, and he definitely had no clever one-liners at all.

So, eventually, he entered the line, and picked the closest seat to her, he still felt reasonable and comfortable with, which meant two places away from her. He saw in the corner of his eye that she looked up at him as he settled down on his seat, and started unpacking his things, then returned to her book in a second.

 _Come on, Peter, focus!_ he told himself, as he flipped open his computer and opened a new word document. He already missed the first ten minutes, and he really should have paid attention to the actual class, over a girl, whose name he didn't even know, and who clearly paid no attention to him at all.

He gazed down at the blackboard and started computing in the words of which he could make some sense. Even though this professor had terrible handwriting, he actually liked him a lot. He was enthusiastic, he obviously knew his stuff, and generally, it was just good to listen to him – not to mention he could be a lot of fun too.

But the minutes had passed slowly, his coffee started to run out, and after he caught up with the professor, he didn't even have a lot of writing to do, which allowed him to be lazier. His eyelids got heavy, his vision tended to lose its focus, and eventually, he let the temptation take him and put his head down on his arms to have some rest. Just a little bit. A couple of minutes and he's gonna pay attention again.

"Jesus, you know you can just leave any time, right?" came a voice from his right. Peter turned to the source of it and saw as the girl already turned back to her book, not showing any interest in whether he was gonna answer or not.

"What?" he asked back with a blank brain, still not even really processing what she just asked him.

"Look, I don't usually care if someone feels like sleeping on a class, but you've been trying to fight it for the last ten minutes and at this point, it's just painful to witness."

Peter tried to recollect his thoughts as well as a little amount of dignity. Did she just insult him, or was this more of a result of a simple observation of hers? The fact that the pretty girl was talking to him, and that mere seconds ago he was still half-asleep, really didn't help him with his answer.

"Ehm... I'm sorry," Peter apologized. "I bought coffee," he said, showing up his half-empty cup to prove himself, "but it didn't really help, I guess..." He even drank another sip of it to show that his intentions were truly serious. It felt cold and bitter in his mouth, but he was willing to make the sacrifice and swallow it.

"You shouldn't drink that," said the girl, still not even looking up from her book. "I saw a guy find a bug in one of those. That machine's probably full of them."

Peter gagged on the little coffee what was left in his mouth, and it spilled out through the corner of his lips, in a way that must have looked rather ungracious. For the first time, he was glad, the girl was fixing her eyes on her book, as he quickly grabbed a tissue, and cleaned himself.

"Thanks," he coughed, "for the tip." She didn't respond. Peter waited a little, but she was still reading so it seemed like their conversation was over. He didn't want it to be over, though. He had to say something. Just one line. It didn't need to be clever, or relevant, and let's face it, it was most likely going to be awkward, but he just had to keep talking with this girl, and maybe learn a bit more about her.

"So, ehm..." Peter cleared his throat. "Already learned this?" he asked, gesturing towards the blackboard. The girl looked up at him, for what was probably the second time throughout their whole conversation, with a confused frown. Her face was pretty, too. Her right eye was partially covered by some loose curls of her hair. Or maybe they weren't loose at all, and she intentionally brushed it like that. Either way, it looked natural, mysterious and distant at the same time, and it somehow bewitched him. Come on, Peter, you can't fall for every other girl who cares to talk to you for a couple of sentences.

"I mean... You're not paying attention either. Just reading, and..." The girl's facial expression didn't change at all while he was talking. She looked disturbed and uninterested, and Peter realized he should have just stopped talking already and let her read her book in peace, without a lame guy miserably trying to make contact with her, so he turned back to his computer in silence.

He was almost ready to get over this whole interlude and pay that small amount of attention he had left to the class again when the girl answered him: "I'm not supposed to be here." Her voice lost a bit of its sharpness this time. "I just like to read, and my roommate is unbearable, so... It's a calm place, and I like Prof Tasman's classes."

Peter's heart paced up instantly. She just answered him, and it actually sounded like something out of a real conversation. He let himself a glance at her and saw that she was still gazing at her book, her curly, brown locks dropping down in front of her eye again. Okay, there was no point of denial: she wasn't just pretty, she was cute, too. Objectively speaking, of course. Come on, Peter, you are helpless.

"Yeah, I mean. It's totally understandable. Tasman's a good teacher."

"Good enough, you almost fell asleep during his class?" she asked, with the earlier uninterest and neutrality in her voice. Okay, she was cute, but why did she have to put him on the spot all the time like that?

"Well... I mean, he's a good teacher, but this class is boring as hell."

"Heh," snorted the girl and Peter's heart warmed. It wasn't a laugh, but he could make her smile!

They were silent for a couple more seconds again, and Peter was just about to come up with another question when she opened her mouth: "You should probably take notes now. I'm not trying to shrug you off or something, but he said, this part's gonna be in the finals."

"Really?" Peter asked back, surprised. He was so caught up in his thoughts, he almost forgot he was still sitting on a class. "Thanks," he said, which somehow made him feel awkward, and turned back to his computer. He still saw as the girl nodded in acknowledgment, but it was clear, that she had already returned her full attention to her book.

At much of Peter's disappointment, they didn't talk anymore throughout the rest of the class. He was busy taking notes, and she was busy reading her book. The boy had thought about a lot of good questions he could ask her after they've finished, but shortly before the end, the girl had disappeared. At one moment she was there, reading her book with great enthusiasm in the corner of Peter's eye, and in the next, she was gone.

Back in their dorm, Peter dropped down his backpack in the corner and lay down with his back on the couch. Ned glanced at him for a moment, before going back to building his lego Star Destroyer. "How was class?"

"Went fine," shrugged Peter. "Nothing special about it... But there was a girl-"

"Dude, I've told you already: girls can study at universities since the 1800s. You shouldn't be weirded out by this."

Peter grabbed a pillow and threw it at Ned's back.

"Hey, careful!" he snapped. "I'm trying to build a Star Destroyer over here."

"I'm serious, man." Peter reached out for the fallen pillow and crossed his arms over it as he put it on his chest. "There was something about her... She just went there to read, she didn't even have the class."

"Sounds weird," acknowledged Ned.

"Yeah, she was weird. Like, unusual... But in a good way."

"Is she pretty?"

"Really pretty," nodded Peter. "And seems clever, too. She tried to play uninterested, but I think she's actually really nice."

"Mm-hmm," responded Ned with great concentration, as he was trying to paste a really tricky part into his creation. "And what's her name?"

"No idea. She disappeared before I realized."

"Dude..." said Ned on a tone that Peter really didn't like.

"What?"

"Do I really have to say it out loud? ...She shook you off."

"No, she didn't," frowned Peter. "It wasn't like that. At all." Ned turned his chair towards him and sent him a meaningful look. "She shook me off?" he asked in realization, more himself, than Ned. "But we seemed to get along well," he mumbled.

"Come on, man." Ned tried to stay rational and still be supportive. "Who knows, why girls do what they do? Hey, could you give me a hand?" he asked, trying to change the subject. "I need help with this shield generator."

"Sure," replied the boy, as he finally put down the pillow and stood up to help out his friend.

Throughout the rest of the evening, they had loads of fun together and with the lego Star Destroyer, and Peter could totally put his thoughts about his encounter with the girl aside. It was only by night when Ned was already snuffling in his own bed on the other side of the room, when the picture of her face, partially covered by her soft brown locks, getting lost in a book of hers reappeared in his mind. This picture was what made him smile in his sleep that night, and what he first thought about when he woke up the next morning.


	3. Chapter 2 - Change of Courses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or when Luck finally finds a way to help out Peter Parker...

A little more than one week had passed since Peter met with the girl, and now he had started to accept, that he probably won't see her again. He couldn't recall seeing her anytime in the last three months, before that late-afternoon class, and he didn't see her on the same one, one week later, either. He even managed to arrive at that class late again, just so he could next to her this time too, but she didn't show up at all.

At least this time he wasn't in a hurry. He was walking towards building R, with a comfortable pace, getting his mindset ready for his next practice course. He wanted to be sharp that day because he just changed his last course unit to this one because that last instructor was a douchebag, and he didn't really know what to expect. He heard a lot of good about this course, but still...

He opened the building's gate with a yawn and headed for the second floor. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to stay out on patrol for late-night before this day. As a matter of fact, he wanted to head home around 1 AM, right after he had webbed a mugger to a lamp-post, but the exact moment, he had turned around, he felt that something else was wrong too, and the events didn't stop from that point up until 3 AM. So much about waking up at 7, and starting to write his science study...

He opened the door of a room, he had never seen before. A couple of other students were sitting inside already, some of them chatting, the others just waiting in silence, but none of them seemed familiar to Peter, so he chose an empty line and sat down in it. According to his phone, he still had ten minutes, so he unpacked his notes with his computer, and turned it on. He felt like maybe he should check out his previous notes on the subject, but was unable to bring himself to that, so with a healthy amount of shame, he opened up twitter instead.

He was just about to like a post on Spider-Man when he sensed that something was going to happen. He looked around instantly and saw the girl from last week's class enter the room with an opened book in her hands. Time had slowed down for a moment and Peter felt his heartbeat quicken. She didn't seem to notice him, and she sat down in the far corner of the room, setting her book on her desk, not even looking up from it.

Peter realized that he was openly staring at her so he quickly turned back to his computer. Okay. Keep it together. What were the odds, really? From about fifty different courses on this subject, he managed to pick the one, which she was attending to. He could just walk up to her right now... but no. Even though they'd met once, it would still be weird. Or wouldn't it...? Would it? Oh, he wished May was there, so bad. She always seemed to know how to handle these situations. Okay. Focus. She won't go anywhere. Class' almost starting. Sit still. Pay attention to the teacher. And walk up to her at the end. Okay, cool. It was a plan.

Peter couldn't help but look back at her over his shoulder, just to make sure she was still there. The girl was sitting in her place, still paying full attention to her book. God, she could read. Peter had never seen anyone else before, who could lose themselves this much in a book.

"Good morning everyone!" he heard and quickly turned forward again. His new instructor had just arrived, and the class had started.

He chose this course because of the instructor actually. He heard he was great at his field. A great weirdo. Well, pretty much all the great brains belonged to weirdos when it came to science. But what he heard seemed to be all true, he could realize that much very early on in the class. The guy was probably in his mid-twenties, and Peter was quite sure, he had never stopped. He started the class without any kind of warming up, presumably right where he left off a week ago, in the minute, he entered the room. He knew the answers to any question he was asked, and it was clear that he loved his subject, and had a very deep knowledge of it. He was talking and acting a bit weird, but his teaching skills were pretty good too. Twenty minutes in, Peter was sure, he made a perfect decision when he swapped to this course. Not to mention that the girl was there too.

He had to fight the urge to look back and make sure she was still there every five minutes. At least the instructor's enthusiastic presentation helped him a little, to distract his thoughts. Thankfully the class was great, and it'd passed pretty quickly. Peter was surprised to realize, that there were only five minutes left, near the end of the class. At that point, he let himself a quick glance backward, just to make sure. The girl was still sitting there, not with a book for once, but with a notebook and a pen in her hand. Maybe she was taking notes, but Peter had the impression, she was actually drawing. Anyway, he started packing his things already. He wouldn't miss his chance now, not like last time.

The course had finished, but he was self-conscious enough to give himself a moment before he stood up, for one last check. Teeth? OK. Breath? Check. Smell? Fine. Hair? Probably a mess, but it will have to do. It was time. He glanced back at her again, and obviously, she just had to look at his direction at that exact moment. Peter quickly turned back, his cheeks warming up way too fast for his like. Oh, why did he have to be so awkward all the time? But, there was nothing he could do about it now, so he took a deep breath and stood up with his backpack. The girl was still sitting at her place, looking at her notebook then up at Peter when he approached her.

"Are you following me, coffee guy?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"What? No! No, of course not. I'm not like those... creepy guys." he replied, thinking he sounded absolutely awkward.

"It's the second time, you show up in my class. Should I be afraid?" God, was she serious, or was she just joking now? Peter decided to fight back, this once.

"I mean... I was here first, you came in after me, so–" And he just told her, that he was watching her when she came in. Great job... Well, he had to go with that now, and hope she didn't pick up on it. "How do I know you're not following me?"

"I've been visiting this course since the beginning of this year, and this was the first time I saw you here," she said as she finished packing her stuff and stood up in front of Peter. Unfortunately for him, she was making a good point.

Peter opened his mouth and shut it again. What should he answer to that? His brain had gone blank and suddenly it felt like, someone had suckled out all the oxygen from the room. "I swap classes," he blurted out the truth, knowing how suspicious it sounded. He was unable to think of any lies, but frankly, he didn't even want to. He just had to go with the truth and see what happens.

"That's exactly what someone would do if they wanted to follow me," she replied on a skeptical tone.

"But would they tell it to you, though?" Peter asked back with a newfound boldness. It felt like, he had to prove his righteousness to her. "Really, I'm just here because of the teacher." The girl raised a questioning eyebrow at him. "I-I can explain it on the way. If... you wanted to–"

They were standing there, in front of each other in silence, for a couple of moments which felt way too long for Peter, who was gesturing towards the door with his eyebrows raised, while the girl was looking at him with narrowed eyes again, most likely contemplating whether she should accept his offering or not. Peter started to hear his heartbeat in his ears, but he didn't dare to move until she gave him an answer, fearing that even the slightest change in his body language could affect her choice in the wrong way.

"Okay," she said finally.

"Okay?" Peter sighed in relief and quickly ordered the corners of his mouth to form a less stupid grin. "Great! Great. Ehm... I mean, yeah. Let's go then," he said, stepping to the door of the now-empty room, and opening it a bit wider to free the way for her.

"So what's your story?" the girl asked as they both headed down the stairway. Peter figured she was referring to his promised explanation of the class-switch.

"Oh, yeah. Er... So, my first science teacher was an egoist dipwad. Decided, I'm gonna find a better course, and they told me yours was a good teacher... I mean, not yours specifically," he stated quickly after he realized what he just said. "I didn't know it was yours. Of course. Not like, if that was a problem. But it was just a coincidence." _Stop. Talking. Already._

"Aha. So you ran, like a loser." On one hand, Peter was extremely thankful, she wasn't pushing on the question of how suspicious it was that he had just found her course by accident but on the other hand it was a quite mean statement. He opened his mouth to reply and immediately closed it again. He had no idea what to say. Maybe she wasn't as nice as he thought. Or maybe...

"Hey," Peter's thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the girl from his right, and her elbow slightly pushing on the side of his upper arm. "I'm messing with you."

 _Of course, she was, idiot!_ Peter mentally palmed his forehead. How did he not realize that? He suspected it was going to take some time for him to get used to her sarcastic sense of humor. Not that he knew, they were gonna talk again at all.

"So. What did they say about this teacher?" asked the girl, when she saw, he wasn't going to give her an answer soon.

"Brandon?" asked back Peter, the obvious, but before he could continue, they've arrived at the main floor, and he was quick to push open the door for the girl again. Otherwise, he might have thought something like this was an overly courteous act, an act of a toadying person, but he couldn't care less since she sent him a thankful smile in exchange, which made his heart melt a little bit. Come on, Peter, keep yourself together!

"I heard he was smart. One of the bests in this field actually," he said as he stepped outside behind the girl, and picked up her pace, having no idea where they were going. Frankly, it was all the same for him, as long as he could spend time with her. "Also, that he was a weirdo. I think the word, my friend used was outcast."

"So why did you choose him?" asked the girl, looking sideways at him, while she brushed away the loose curls, covering her eye. Peter looked right back at her and their gazes met, which delayed the boy's attempt to process the question by a couple of seconds. "I mean, I imagine you had plenty of options."

She was right, Peter had plenty of options to choose from. He had heard great things about half-a-dozen instructors and still, he chose this one, the one to which miraculously she also happened to be attending to. It could have been nice to believe, it was something greater, like destiny that brought him there – Not that he was hoping, they were destined for each other. He simply just liked her. As a person. That was all. – but the logical explanation was something much more reasonable.

"Yeah, I had," he agreed finally, appreciating how she waited for his answer in silence. "Actually, I think I chose him because they said he was a weirdo." Actually, he was sure he chose him because they said he was a weirdo, but he didn't know how would the girl like this response, so he decided to go with the former one. "I think it can be good if someone's a bit weird," he admitted and glanced over at her. She seemed to be satisfied with his answer.

"So you didn't pick the course because of me," she said, half-stating, half-questioning.

"Yeah, no, I mean. I didn't pick it because of you, yeah. Not that I know... You were studying here." Peter gulped and felt his ears getting surprisingly warm for the weather. Just when he thought he was doing well...

"I'm just kidding, Loser," took finally pity on him the girl, as she elbowed him again.

"Your jokes are mean," Peter blurted out, immediately regretting it. He wasn't sure, which was worse: that his statement sounded so childish, or that he just unintentionally offended her. Probably the latter, though.

"Yeah, well. Maybe that's why I don't have any friends," she said surprisingly cool, her eyes narrowed, with a thoughtful gaze. She didn't seem offended at all. "Anyway, we are here."

Peter almost stumbled upon his own legs as she suddenly stopped beside him. He looked up at the building next to them and frowned. "But, this is the library," he stated the obvious.

"And I read books. A match made in heaven."

And she reads books... Peter had to mentally palm his face for the umpteenth time that day. He got so used to the feeling, it was almost like he was doing it for real. Why did he have to turn into the dumbest person, when she was around?

"Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah... I mean. See you next week, then?" he asked finally, what was originally going to be a statement.

"I guess," replied the girl.

Peter wasn't sure how to say goodbye to her properly, but he didn't have much time before the situation would escalate into something really awkward, so he finally decided to go for a handshake.

"I'm Peter, by the way," he said as he reached out with his right hand. "Peter Parker."

"Michelle Jones," she said as she took his hand and lightly shook it. "See ya', Loser." And with that, Michelle turned around and was gone in a second.


	4. Chapter 3 - Operation Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ned comes to the help...

"Come on, it won't take much. I just wanna have a look."

"I was reserving this morning to catch up with The Mandalorian," complained Ned from his chair. "And I thought, you were gonna go out, doing spider stuff tonight."

Well, Peter thought that too, up until two days ago, when he met Michelle and learned that she could be found in the College's library. Since then, in the last forty-eight hours, he had gone from 'Nah, I won't do that' to a full-fledged plan, about how he was going to visit her there, without raising any suspicions. And to achieve that, he required the assistance of Ned.

The plan was quite simple actually, having only four straightforward steps: 1.) Go to the library – should be easy 2.) Wait around for Michelle if she is not already there and start reading a book – probably a bit boring if he can't find any science fiction novels, but ultimately still worth it 3.) Start talking with Michelle and prove her that he wasn't there to stalk her – which wouldn't be a lie at all because he was there to talk with her and besides, he knew for sure that he wasn't a creep 4.) See what happens – okay, maybe Number 4 wasn't elaborated that much yet, but he only had so much time. Ned should come into the picture at Number 3, to help him prove her, that he wasn't there to stalk her.

"Yeah, umm... Change of plans. I won't. Please, man," begged Peter. "We can catch up with The Mando together tonight. But you have to come with me because if I show up all alone, she's gonna think, I'm a creep."

"Well, technically it's kinda weird how you are trying to sneak up on her." Before he could start to protest, Ned continued: "And what about Liz? I thought you had a crush on her, and not on this Michelle."

Ned, seriously? Peter didn't even know where to begin. "Okay, first of all, Liz was about four years ago, I haven't seen her in three, and I'm pretty sure, I already told you this." Ned rolled his eyes, but Peter went on: "Second, I don't have a crush on Michelle." This made Ned roll his eyes even more, but Peter still went on: "I just think she's a cool girl. And by the way, I'm sure you'd like her too. One more reason for you to come with me." He knew his friend way too well to not realize, he was close. "Come on man. You are my guy in the chair. I need your help."

"Ahh, bro..." sighed Ned as he shook his head in disapproval. "You are hopeless."

***

"So, how are we doing this?"

"All right. So. She comes in."

"Okay," nodded Ned.

"She sees us."

"Mm-hmm."

"I wave hello to her."

"Yeah."

"She comes here."

"Good."

"And then we start to talk, and I tell her that I'm just here because you asked me to help with your project," explained Peter.

He and Ned were sitting in the college's library, waiting for Michelle to turn up. Part 2 of the plan was in motion now, so they had a small pile of books in front of them for the show, which they selected randomly along their way. The upside of the waiting was that the place was surprisingly comfortable for a library. There was plenty of space for the students to study: a whole segment, dedicated only to computers, another for big empty desks, and yet another to comfortable couches and armchairs – obviously, that was where Peter and Ned decided to settle down. The place didn't really resemble anything Peter was expecting, based on his deep knowledge of libraries, which he gathered throughout his life by occasionally watching movies with May that were taking place in universities. It was cool and friendly and a great middle-ground between old and new, and he actually thought about visiting it more in the future.

"Am I really needed for this plan?" sighed Ned with the lack of any enthusiasm whatsoever after a short silence, which, Peter suspected, he used, to think through the plan once again.

"Yes," he nodded firmly as he was looking back and forth between his friend and the entrance, so he wouldn't miss if Michelle just came in. "It's very important, that you're here. If Michelle arrives and sees me here, alone, just two days after I got to know that she was coming here all the time..." Or at least, he assumed all the time. He hoped so... It very much seemed like that. "She has to think I'm only here because of you, and not because of her."

"I don't know, dude... Why can't you just tell her, that you like her and you wanna go out with her?"

"Because," started Peter, before he even thought about his answer. "It's not that easy. I don't even know if she has a boyfriend. I don't even know her that much," he said with a bit of resignation in his voice.

"Then how can you like her, if you don't even know her?"

"That's exactly why we are here, dude," raised his hands Peter in amusement. "So I can talk to her, and all... And I don't like her," he said pointedly. It immediately felt like, he just betrayed someone or something. "I mean, I don't... I don't know." Thankfully, Ned knew him quite enough to stay silent and let him think about it in peace.

Michelle was cool. He hasn't really met anyone like her. Still, she somehow reminded him of May... Not in a weird way of course, just. Like, they were both fierce, and strong women, that's all. But other than that, Michelle wasn't really like her aunt. He didn't even know at this point why was he trying to compare them.

Michelle was... She had something in her, he couldn't quite put his finger on. She seemed strong-minded. She was definitely quick on her feet, and very clever with her funny, snarky comments. She was awesome, really. Her style and personality, altogether... Maybe just the way, she wore her hair. (Can you even have a cru– _be interested in_ someone based on only one quality like that...?) Or maybe how she could call him a loser, in a way, he didn't feel offended at all. Or how she read her books, paying all her attention to the pages, shutting out everything that was going on around her. Or the independent confidence she had, and how she never seemed to care about other people's opinions on her... She was just awesome.

 _You only met her twice, Peter, you can't possibly pretend to know her._ That's exactly why he had to remind himself all the time not to fall for her already. She could've been a terrible person, for all he has known. Maybe she didn't even like to read that much, and she was just in this mood in the last couple of weeks.

Still, somehow Peter couldn't stop himself from opening his mouth and talking to Ned again. "Okay, I like her." It was way too exciting, to deny it.

"Dude," his friend tilted back his head with a half-smile, but before he could say anything else, Peter suddenly shushed him.

"Hey! That's her," he rushed out in a whisper. "Stick to the plan!"

Time slowed down once again, as Michelle entered the library, and Peter's stomach did a somersault while he was watching her. Somewhere, deep down he knew, he was supposed to activate step three of the plan, and wave to her or something, but that could wait for a couple more seconds. She wore her big brown jacket with black farmer jeans and her hair was organized into a bun, with her trademark loose curls hanging over her right eye. Peter found himself bewitched by her presence, his stomach turning into a heavy little ball which somehow felt exciting and frightening at the same time. Michelle was holding a book in front of herself – of course, she was – not even looking up from it, and still managing to not stumble over at something or walk into a wall. She was just amazing... And she was walking right towards them.

"He's coming over," he shout-whispered to Ned, startling.

"Yeah dude, you didn't even have to wave at her," he replied with a little bit of amusement.

Michelle didn't look up from her book, not until she was about five steps away from them. Then, her gaze finally shifted, checking her surroundings and Peter could swear, he caught a moment of surprise in her eyes before they narrowed at him and Ned.

"Waddup Loser? Friend of Loser," she greeted Ned with a nod, who, to his credit, didn't even flinch, but put on a nice smile, and said:

"I'm Ned Leeds, actually, friend of Peter," but Michelle was already ahead of him.

"What are you guys doing here?"

"Ehm... Yeah, I'm helping him," said Peter, pointing at Ned.

"On a project," his friend added.

"On a project, yes. It's very hard."

"Soul-crushing, actually." Now it was just one step too far. Peter tried to give a subtle, questioning side-glance to Ned. _Soul-crushing?_

"And what are you doing here?" he asked quickly, trying to turn the tide of the conversation.

"I'm basically living here. Roommate, remember?" she replied with a little bit of disgust in her voice. "Anyway that's exactly where I'm usually sitting," she added, pointing slowly at the couch they were sitting on, still holding her book open with her other hand.

Did they really choose the one spot that was hers, out of probably more than a hundred others? Peter didn't know what to make of that information. Well, great minds thought alike, aren't they? He wondered if that could be applied to lovers' minds too... _Okay, Peter, don't get ahead of yourself!_ He jumped way too many steps forward there.

But know he knew, she did, in fact, visit the library regularly. It felt good that he had proof he wasn't misreading her. Well, at least not about that, that was for sure.

At that point, Peter's leg was kicked by Ned.

"Umm... Sorry! We didn't know," he apologized, running a hand through his hair nervously. "We can move away if you wanted to..." he started, kicking Ned into the corner of the couch to make place for her on his side, but Michelle cut him off by sitting down in an armchair on the other side of their table.

"No need," she said. It stung a little but Peter forced himself to not focus on it, and pay all his very much needed attention to the conversation, instead. "What project are you working on?" she asked with an unsettling amount of suspicion.

Peter instantly glanced over to the book which was lying open in front of Ned, and his friend must have done the same with his one because they opened their mouth at the same time to answer her:

"The mating habits of Red Kangaroos," said Peter. _Why on Earth was a chapter, titled this, opened in front of Ned?_

"Orbital circulation of Moon Europa," said Ned.

_Shit._

"The connection between Europa's circulation and the mating habits of Red Kangaroos," tried Ned, but it was a very weak attempt.

How could they not synch their cover story before?

"And for which class do you need this project?" asked Michelle after some deadly silence. Ned opened his mouth again, but she was faster: "Wait! Answer the same time again. This is way too entertaining."

"There's no project," Peter blurted out finally.

"Yeeeeah... I kinda figured that. You know, last time I was just joking with that you-following-me-thing, but I don't know what to think now."

Well. He was fucked.

He could lie. But what? Or should he tell her the truth? It felt like that was the right decision, but then he would basically have to tell her that yes, he was, in fact, following her. And he was sure, she wouldn't be cool with that.

"Peter has a bully," Ned said suddenly from his right. Peter wanted to shot a furious glance at his friend, but he managed to keep his expression straight – he hoped.

It wasn't that bad of a lie actually. Not a great one, either. Anyway, they just had to wing it now...

"Really?" asked back Michelle, with a little bit less suspicion and some... empathy?

"Not really a bully..." Peter responded quickly, trying to turn the lie into something that was a bit less a lie. "More like a... irritating person?" The sentence was supposed to be a statement...

"And he's big," added Ned, so Peter went on before his friend could say anything else.

"Average height. And he's really not a bully, just someone who won't let me be. Anyway, we ran into him before, and we figured he won't follow us here." He risked a glance at Michelle. She was eying him carefully, but she didn't push the topic. Either she believed them and wanted to save Peter's pride from further embarrassment, or didn't believe them but accepted that they won't tell her the truth. He suspected that the latter was more likely, but decided to go with the former for now.

"So... What are you reading?" Peter asked the first question that came into his mind after a short silence which was about to turn awkward.

Peter thought Michelle seemed surprised for a moment. It actually looked like, he caught her off-guard with his question. Did no one ask her about her books before? "W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage," she said eventually on her usual, cool voice. Peter and Ned must have looked dumb because she added: "About an orphan boy... Wants to be an artist but becomes a doctor?" she tried, but they still had no clue. "Have you ever read a book?" she asked finally, but Peter knew by now, not to take her insult seriously.

"Yes, we have," answered Ned before of him. "We just like different kinds of stories."

"What kinda stories?" Michelle asked, and Peter had a feeling she was just playing with Ned.

"Like... The Mandalorian," he said probably the first thing, that popped into his head.

"That's a TV show," she retorted, and they must have looked dumb again because she went on: "What? Can't a girl like sci-fi?"

"You know The Mando?" asked Ned in amusement, and Peter was pretty sure, Michelle just earned five extra points on his friend's scale. That's not to say, he wasn't amused, himself.

"Might watched the first episode..." she replied cryptically.

Suddenly Peter had an idea. He knew himself enough, not to think too much about it because then he would have changed his mind, so he just blurted it out, a bit more high-pitched than he wanted himself to sound: "Do you wanna watch the rest with us?" God, what if she said no? "I mean... We were just planning to watch the new episode tonight." Was he too obviously pushy about it? He should have gone slower. "But we can rewatch a couple of the older ones... They are not too long," he mumbled at the end.

Michelle was still saying nothing, and he just wanted to disappear so badly. This waiting was like the last time he asked her if he could walk with her, just three times worse. He felt his heart, beating in his throat and, though he had hoped, he prepared himself for her rejection, too.

"Well..." she started finally, trying to avoid Peter's gaze, and oh boy, her tone wasn't promising. "I have this research stuff I should finish tonight, and I barely even started working on it yet, so..."

"Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I..." cut her off the boy to save the situation from further embarrassment. "Sure. It's fine." It wasn't fine. Why did he have to ask her about it? Clearly it was too soon. Couldn't he just shut up and think before he said something for once? "Maybe another time," he added silently.

"Yeah, sure!" grabbed his lifesaving belt instantly Michelle. "Sounds good, just the timing... I really gotta do this thing."

Now their conversation was awkwardness at its best, which was a shame because it started so well. Peter just wanted to reverse time and change how their meeting went down altogether. Was it really that big of a thing to ask? Dr. Stange could probably arrange it for him, but there was no other hero in the neighborhood than the friendly Spider-Man. So now, Peter had to go with option B, and take his leave before the situation would turn into something even more awkward.

"Anyway, I think we're safe to go now," he said to Ned. "And our class' coming up, too."

"Yeah, you're right Peter," backed him up his friend, understanding his intentions. "We should go."

"It was nice to meet you, Michelle," said goodbye Peter, managing to smile at the girl. He didn't want to leave on a bad note, and he could absolutely understand why she said no. They've only met three times after all and they've just shown up in the library, right on her spot. They must have been a bit too overwhelming. And hey, she said she had some research thing to do.

Still, it stung. Quite a lot.

Peter and Ned packed their stuff, grabbed ahold of their pile of books, and started into door's direction when Michelle finally said something:

"Hey, Losers!"

Peter halted and turned back to her, Ned following his example with a little delay.

The girl grabbed a notebook and a pen from her backpack and wrote down a couple of numbers on the top sheet. She then tore it out and walked up to Peter to give it to him. She was giving him her number...

"I'm not on twitter or anywhere." She was giving him her number. "So you can text me here." She just gave him her number! "With the details, I mean... I'm not promising anything, but maybe I can free tonight."

Peter opened his mouth to say something and closed it again. He looked down at the sheet in his hand and his stomach did a backflip. He had her number... Peter was sure he had the stupidest, widest grin on his face, but he just couldn't manage to keep it all cool, when his heart finally felt like it was freed after long years of imprisonment. Even the corner of Michell's mouth curled up a little bit when she glanced at his smiley face, but maybe it was just his imagination.

"He will," assured her Ned, as he stepped beside Peter, and subtly stepped on his leg to make him return to reality for the thousandth time that day.

"Yeah. I will, of course. Text you," he said.

"See you tonight, nerds," nodded Michelle, saying goodbye to them, as she sat down on her place. "Or maybe not," she added, placing her feet on the table and opening her book already.

"Yeah, see you tonight," grinned Peter.


	5. Chapter 4 - Chocolate Chip Emergency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For when you are out of Chocolate Chip Cookies...

"So which was the last one you saw?" asked Ned as he stepped into Peter and his dorm room's designated kitchen – which was basically a fridge and a shelf on the wall – and opened a packet of pre-made popcorn.

"The first," replied Michelle from their little couch, where she'd just settled down with her backpack at her legs.

"So, you watched the first episode, and then just stopped there?" asked Peter from her right, where he was sitting with wide-open eyes.

"Yapp," she responded, and when she realized that they didn't say anything, and looked up to see their surprised faces, she added: "I told you, I was gonna watch the rest. Eventually."

"This is The Mandalorian," said Ned on a low voice, like if he was saying something very deep, and meaningful. He sat down on his chair since there was no more space for him on the couch, and passed the popcorn bowl to Michelle. "You can't just watch the first one and then not watch the rest."

"He's right," agreed Peter, biting down a couple of popcorns.

"Nerds..." she said, shooking her head in disbelief.

Peter actually started to like the names she called them. Losers, nerds... He thought it was her way to show that she actually liked them. Like nicknames, or pet names. _Okay, Peter, you are getting ahead of yourself again._

It would have been a lie to say, he didn't start to have daydreams about Michelle, and about what could it be like to get together with her. He had the last one just before she arrived, while he was doing his hair in the bathroom.

Yeah, he was doing his hair. Go on, judge him! Usually, he didn't even pay any attention to it because he just hadn't had the time, so it was inevitable to one day make it up for all those lost occasions anyway. And apparently this was that day. He spent about twenty minutes in front of the mirror before Ned finally had enough, and kicked him out so he could use the bathroom. In the end, Peter just ran his fingers through his hair, the same way he always did and hoped for the best. Of course, this whole thing was never actually about his hair, but rather having something to distract his thoughts with, because, yeah. He was nervous. And excited. And worried and maybe also frightened a little bit.

He so desperately wanted this thing to work out. Which was ridiculous, it was just a movie night, but still, it was also much more than that.

He just couldn't get ahold of himself. He liked Michelle, there was no doubt about that. And he also knew that he was a dumbass because he barely know her. But also, it felt like he had known her for much longer, the same way he felt about Ned just a couple days after they met each other.

The whole thing was complicated, exciting, and his thoughts were chasing themselves, and so paying attention to his hair and to picking a shirt for the night (he chose the "Find x"-one) was a good way to calm down. Or at least it could have been if his damn locks weren't so annoying...

Another good way to distract his thoughts and something he just generally liked to do was to reread his and Michelle's texts. It wasn't a long read, he only got her number a couple of hours earlier after all, but just being able to scroll through _his and Michelle's texts_ was amazing on its own:

 **Me:** _Hey, Im Peter_

 **Me:** _Parker_

 **Me:** _Just writing if you are down for tonight_

 **Michelle:** _Yeah, I think I can manage it_

 **Me:** _Great! Our room is at E building, door 327_

 **Me:** _How about 6?_

 **Michelle:** _Good for me_

 **Michelle:** _See u there, dork_

 **Me:** _See you_

See? Amazing.

After Michelle gave Peter her number, he was sure it was because she changed her mind about accepting their invitation, but as time went on, he became less and less confident about it. She said she had some research to do, and he had no reason to doubt that. Most likely she gave him her number because she herself wasn't sure how will her evening turn out and needed some time to figure out what she wanted, too. It was a relief to read, she could and also wanted to come.

Anyway, he should have paid attention to what was actually going on around him. The episode had already started, and he didn't catch anything from it so far. (Not like that was a problem and not to brag or anything either, but he saw it twice already.) What was actually important was that he hoped he could learn more about Michelle that night, and maybe even get a bit closer to her. They had plenty of opportunities to talk, there weren't many lines in The Mandalorian. He just had to come up with something as an opener...

"So, er, Michelle..."

"MJ," interrupted her the girl, but Peter didn't understand. "M-my friends call me MJ," she explained, looking at him and then Ned with the popcorn bowl in her hands.

Peter could clearly remember how she told him just a couple of days ago that she had no friends, but he couldn't care less about that right now. She considered them her _friends_! It wasn't exactly what he hoped he could be to her but it was a perfect start.

"MJ," he said, trying out the new name, probably grinning like an idiot. "How's your book?" That was his question, really? He hoped he wouldn't have to do this again around her, but he just mentally facepalmed himself.

"I thought we were watching the greatest TV-show of history" she responded, her eyes still gazing at the monitor. _No talking. Got it._

"We are, in fact," replied Ned to her comment, and they left it at that.

Peter couldn't decide whether he should be happy that she was interested in The Mando this much, or bumped that she didn't want to talk. He decided to go with the former. There were plenty of ways to have a good time together and learn more about each other in silence, too. Still, it stung a little. He just tried to be friendly.

Maybe she only came for The Mandalorian after all. Peter had thought about this a great deal earlier that day, too. Why did Michelle– MJ agreed to go there and have a movie night with them? At first, he thought that maybe it was because she had no friends and she was happy to socialize. But after only a couple of seconds, he realized that he was very wrong. Only an idiot would think that MJ would do anything only just to socialize. So, there was that rather disappointing option then, that she had just come for The Mandalorian. But then again: she just called them her friends a couple of minutes ago. The idea of their company had to play into her decision to accept their invitation at least a little bit... There was one more possibility though too; that she had actually come over because she was interested in Peter, but the boy was smart enough to not even think about that without any kind of evidence. He didn't want to give himself false hopes.

And to be fair, when Peter tried to ask her about her book, it was a quite exciting scene that played on. It was understandable that she wanted to pay attention.

Their trio remained silent for a good while, only breaking it by occasional "wow"-s, "that's so cool"-s and "aw, baby Yoda is so cute"-s – this last one was Ned's saying of course.

As Peter was starting to accept his fate that he won't get any closer to MJ that evening, they got closer to each other, just in a different way than he had expected. At one point Michelle put down the empty popcorn bowl to the ground and settled back on the couch, but significantly closer to him than she was before. There were still several inches between them though but she was undoubtedly closer.

Still, maybe it was nothing. She just sat back on a different spot, big deal. It could one-hundred percent be unintentional. And so, Peter decided to not think about it, and just keep watching the show. However, a couple of minutes later, she shuffled in her seat and ended up even closer to him, this time.

Holy crap, it was definitely intentional!

Peter's heart started racing, and he couldn't pay attention to The Mando anymore at all. He was still eying their monitor, but he tried to give subtle side-glances to MJ and figure out what to do with the situation. Maybe he shouldn't have pushed his luck, but man, he was going to do just that. He settled back on the couch, shifting his legs into a more comfortable-looking position, and moved, just a tiny little bit closer to her in the process. He saw her giving away a small reaction in the corner of his eyes, but she didn't move away, and that was definitely a good sign.

Their thigs and shoulders were close to touching now, and Peter had to restrain himself from closing the gap right away. Half of him couldn't even believe that this was actually happening and the other half knew, that he pushed his luck just enough that evening already. He didn't exactly know what was happening though, because his mind had just decided to completely shut down, but he definitely felt that it was something awesome. His guts told him, he was supposed to wait for her to make the next move, and he was right. After the passing of another couple of minutes, MJ shifted again, and now only about an inch separated their bodies from each other.

Peter counted ten Mississippis and was just about to close the little gap – which scared him more than anything on the world at that moment – between them when Ned suddenly spoke up:

"Oh, my... Peter. We are out of chocolate chip cookies," he said, but Peter almost completely missed his words. His friend's voice seemed distant and unimportant in the current situation.

"We're gonna buy some tomorrow," he replied, a little annoyed that Ned couldn't wait with this information, not even looking up at him.

"No, I... Peter, I mean. We are out of chocolate chip cookies!"

Now it was one step too far. Peter looked up at Ned to tell him to calm down, but when he spotted the desperate expression on his friend's face it clicked in. It was the code! Their code. For when someone was around them who didn't know about his other identity, but the situation was so dire that it just couldn't wait. This was that situation. It was happening. Right now. But why now?!

"What?" he asked back, blinking. "Right now?"

"Yeah," sent a desperate and still meaningful look to him Ned. "Right now."

Peter stood up instantly. "I'm gonna go."

"Okaaay," Michelle started. "Did I miss something?"

"Yeah, no, I gotta go Michelle. MJ. I'm so sorry," apologized Peter as he was backing towards the room's door, trying to avoid the girl's gaze. "It was great, really. Actually I'll be back in a minute. But I gotta go. I'm really sorry, but... We are out of chocolate chip cookies."

Peter's fingers had found the door's handle, and he instantly opened it, almost fell on his back as he was trying to escape through it, and shut it behind himself once he was out, without waiting for any kind of responses. He gave himself one moment to jerk his head back, blow out a deep breath and shot a painful grimace at the gods before he threw the backpack he grabbed along his way on his shoulder and started running towards the common bathroom's direction. He knew only one thing: the faster he got done with whatever this problem was, the sooner he could come back to MJ.

The small bathroom was empty, thank God, so he entered the first cabinet, and changed into his spider suit as quickly as it was humanly possible.

"What's happening Karen?" he asked after he locked the door and jumped up to the ceiling, leaving his clothes behind in the cabinet. It wasn't the safest way to suit up, but it was definitely the fastest he could think of when he moved into the dorm and was first trying to come up with possible places to put on the Spider-Man spandex. And he had more than one _great_ reason to be fast at that moment.

"Good evening, Peter," answered him the language-user interface instantly. "There was a report of an armed assault near Kingsley Park. Two block's North-East from your current location. The attackers are said to be equipped with unidentified weapons."

"Got it," replied Peter as he jumped out the toilet's window, and fired his first web.

"I would suggest you approach the scene with caution. I have very little information on the attackers."

"What are you talking about?" Peter asked her jokingly as he swang through the streets, attaching his web from building to building. "I'm always cautious."

Karen didn't reply to that and Peter was confident she had learned to ignore his statements like that last one, throughout the years only by herself. Tony and his tech...

"Let me acknowledge that linking me with your friend, Ned Leeds' cellphone seems to be a great upgrade. Your response time has improved by twenty-seven percent."

"Twenty-seven?!" Peter asked in disbelief as he arrived at the park, and settled down on top of a nearing lamp post. "Come on, your system's gotta be faulty. I'm not that slow," he mumbled, laying eyes on the attackers. They seemed to be "ordinary" gang-members, split into two sides fighting against each other, except that one of the parties' guns were shooting some kind of glowing plasma.

"Are you kidding me? Weird stuff follows me everywhere..." With that, Peter jumped down to street level and started fighting the surprised criminals. He shot webs, dodged bullets and threw some punches, and the plasma-guys quickly decided to take on him instead of the regular-guys, who took the chance as soon as they saw it, and fleed.

He was doing fairly good, having a couple of the gang-members webbed to the ground already, when Karen's voice had sounded: "You have one incoming call, Peter."

"What? From who?"

"Happy Hogan."

"Don't answer it," he told her instantly as he jumped over a guy's head, and grabbed his shoulder with the same movement to crash him onto the asphalt.

"Hey, kid!" came Happy's voice from his mask's built-in speakers.

"What the hell, Karen?" he complained between two dodges.

"I'm sorry Peter, this setting has been set back to default with the latest update. Would you like to change it?"

"Peter? Can you hear me?" Happy asked again, sounding confused.

"Yes, I'm here, Happy. I'm just a little bit busy."

"I got a notification on my phone, that Karen has been turned on." That sounded very wrong. "Was it you?"

"Yeah, it's just because of an upgrade, Happy, don't worry about it!" grunted Peter as he kicked off the gun from a big guy's hand, and webbed it to a tree.

"Are you fighting someone? What are these noises?"

"Is he fighting someone?" Peter heard a woman's muffled voice from the back.

"Wait, Aunt May is there?" he asked confused.

"Who the hell are ya' talking to?" asked one of the criminals, Peter had just webbed. He sent a shot towards his mouth to mute him.

"Yes, and I think he is fighting some people," Happy answered and the boy was beyond frustrated.

"Peter, I thought we have agreed that you are going to study there, and won't let Spider-Man take on all your time!" May complained to him on the phone. "That's why they have the police in Cambridge."

"Yes, May, I know," he replied, tired. "But this is exceptional. And... And what are you doing with Happy?" he asked his own question, hoping to turn the tides of the conversation.

"Listen to your aunt, kid," came Happy's voice from the speaker again. Great, now he will never know the answer. He will seriously have to talk about this with May one time. "You deserve to focus only on your studies and on college."

"You know what, Happy? Maybe you're actually right on that one," Peter replied thoughtfully as he disarmed the last guys from the violent gang, too.

"Of course I am," the man said from the other end of the line. "Now finish up what you are doing, and go back to being a student."

This conversation was long and distracting enough already. "Bye Happy," he said impatiently, and hang him up immediately.

Peter looked around and let himself a triumphant smile, as he acknowledged that all of the criminals were unconscious or webbed to something.

"The police will be here in two minutes, Peter," he heard Karen's voice. "I would suggest you leave now."

"Yeah, right," he replied quickly before he reached out with his arm and attached a string of his webbing to the nearest building. "Seriously, you guys are shooting like stormtroopers!" he spoke up, quite proud of his joke as he jumped up from the ground. "You should take a class or something."

After some swinging, an idea popped into Peter's head: "Hey, Karen? Where can I buy chocolate chip cookies?"

***

"Hey! Sorry, it took so long!" Peter apologized, as he shut their dorm room's door open, and almost jumped at MJ, who was standing right in front of him.

"It's okay, we didn't start the new one yet," replied Ned from the back of the room, and Peter could tell he wanted to ask him about his encounter with the thugs, so bad, but couldn't because of the presence of MJ. And by the way, what was MJ doing? She was just standing there. Was she leaving?! "How was shopping?" Ned added at last.

"Great, got'em," rushed out Peter, throwing the chocolate chip cookies he bought along the way onto the couch and dropping his backpack with his Spidey-suit next to it, while he was still standing in the doorway. "Are you... going somewhere?" he asked MJ carefully.

"Yeah, umm... I just realized I forgot to send in a project to my prof. And the deadline is tonight, so..."

"Oh," was all that Peter could respond at the moment.

MJ was clearly lying, but Peter couldn't blame her. He left her and Ned in the middle of their movie-night, and he had just realized that it must have been really awkward for both of them in the last half-an-hour. He was really sorry, but he had no other choice, and now he couldn't even tell her he was sorry. Great...

Peter was kinda hoping before, that she won't really mind his little trip. Why? Clearly, because he was a stupid dumbass. Of course, MJ was minding it. She must have excused herself to Ned right before he has arrived, and now she couldn't take it all back and say 'Oh, sorry, I was just lying' even if she wanted to, and why did everything have to be so complicated?

"Yeah, sorry," she said as she reluctantly went around Peter and stepped out of the room. There was no way, this night would end like that.

"Lemme go with you," the boy rushed out to her, speaking before he was thinking, as always. "We could talk on the way," he offered.

"All right, Loser," she said after some thinking and Peter let out a relieved breath with a smile. "Bye Ned," she added as she already started walking towards the stairs.

"Don't start the new episode without me," the boy whisper shouted into their room before he closed the door, but he could still hear Ned's frustrated sigh from the other side. Peter knew he will be okay.

"So what was this whole thing with the cookies?" MJ asked as they were walking down the stairs. Straight to the point, okay... He must have looked dumb because she added: "Ned told me, it's a secret."

"What?!" asked back Peter, for once actually knowing that he sounded really dumb. What the hell, Ned? "Why would he tell you that? There's no..."

"Because going out to buy cookies in the middle of the evening while you could be watching a Star Wars show is a terrible excuse... And maybe because I forced it out of him, too." Well, MJ could be very scary, he had to give that to Ned.

"All right, yeah, I wasn't just buying cookies," he admitted it as they walked out into the night. There was no point in denying it anymore. "But I can't tell you why I left."

"Why?" The question was very simple. Peter wished the answer was too.

"Look, I'm honestly, really sorry about this whole thing. I really really do. But I just can't." MJ was silent, so he didn't think, just went on: "I'm truly sorry. I wanted this night to work out..."

"Why did you leave then?" asked MJ again, but Peter didn't respond this time. After some seconds, she added with a sigh: "Okay. I get it. Everyone has their secrets... Then... answer only this," the girl continued on surprisingly low voice, after some silence. "Did it have anything to do with me?"

"With you?" blinked Peter, and then he almost laughed. It didn't even cross his mind before but maybe this was MJ's only problem. He was so dumb, he didn't realize. They were watching the show together, they were starting to get close, and then he suddenly left. It must have felt pretty bad for her. Gosh, he was an idiot. "No. No, of course not. Not at all. MJ, you had nothing to do with it, I swear," he told her in all seriousness and he even drew a cross on his chest with his pointing finger. Which was dumb. "Hey, you know what? I can't tell you about this secret, but I can tell you about another one," he added suddenly, without thinking as always. It was in his nature.

"Two secrets in one day," MJ commented sarcastically. "Are you an agent or something?"

"No, I'm serious," Peter replied, and he even lowered his voice, like someone who is about to talk about something very secretive. "I don't actually have a bully," he blurted out and peeked at MJ. She didn't say anything, just narrowed her eyes, so he kept talking. "Ned just made it up. On the spot." Peter gulped. Why was it so hard to talk suddenly? Maybe this was a bad idea after all. "We were in the library... because of you. I mean only me. Ned came because I asked him to... I really enjoyed talking to you and I guess I just wanted to see you again."

"So, you lied," MJ questioned him, but there was something mischievous in her voice, which told Peter: _she is not actually mad at you._

"I mean... You just lied about the deadline of your project, too," he replied with newfound boldness. Maybe it was a bit too much. He didn't actually know if she was really lying about the deadline being on that night.

But MJ just smirked at him and said: "Maybe you are not as dumb as you look, Parker." Peter smiled back at her and they remained silent for some time. "You asked me about my book before," MJ said finally, and Peter hm-ed in agreement. "It's terrifying."

"Oh," the boy said in surprise. "Sorry to hear that."

"No, I mean. That's good. It's about a house, that's bigger on the inside than the outside. It kinda expands into a labyrinth, and the people living in it are going mad," explained Michelle, shaking her head. "It's weird. I love it."

"Sounds... Yeah, it sounds weird," snorted Peter before they've stopped in front of a building which was presumably MJ's dorm.

The girl looked down at her shoes then back at him before saying: "I like talking to you, too."

Peter didn't know what to say so he just shamelessly grinned at her, and hey, was that a blush, starting to form on the girl's face? Oh no, it's gonna make him blush, too. The situation never got that far though, because MJ quickly said good night to him, and turn to the entrance.

"Yeah, good night!" replied Peter. "See you in class." After she disappeared behind the door, the boy turned back too and fist-bumped the air before he started walking back to his own room with a big smile on his face, feeling lighter then he did when he was swinging around buildings as Spider-Man.


	6. Chapter 5 - Ambivalent AcaDec

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I know that Academic Decathlon is only for high schoolers, but I was too lazy to look up something similar which is for college students, so please just roll with this.

There were only four days left until Christmas Eve, and Peter was still at College. Most of the students have already left, going back to their families for the Holidays to finally relieve from all the stress of the semester and the finals. Ned was also one of them, leaving Peter as the only occupant of their dorm room for two days. It was nice to have the whole place only to himself, but he already missed his friend. It was weird, being there without him. Originally, Peter was to leave with him and go back to New York together, but then MJ happened.

So, now Peter was running towards building L in the snow, with his big blue jacket around his body, having no regrets at all. First; because the college's old buildings were beautiful in the snow that had just fallen the last night, and second; because he was running to his very first Academic Decathlon practice, where he was invited to by MJ. The girl just casually asked him after one class they took together, and he would have to be crazy to say no to that invitation. So he took a test, passed it, and the next thing he knew, he was running towards their first, (very off-schedule) practice session. Well, technically it was the last one that year, but the first one for him. And yes, he was running. Spider-Man was needed before and so now he was already three minutes late.

About two weeks had passed since the night when they watched The Mandalorian with MJ, and things were going pretty well between them. Well, don't think about something huge, but he didn't screw up anything either, and that was considered "pretty well" by him. They've met on the classes of their common course and even on one of Peter's lectures – MJ felt like reading there instead of in her room with her annoying roommate – where they sat next to each other and had some awkward, but ultimately still really nice conversations. Peter also visited her in the library a couple of times – where at first, he tried to pretend once again that he was just there because of some other reason than her, but then realized that he was dumb and she was very smart so eventually dropped the act.

Peter entered the building, ran up to the first floor, and practically jumped into room 1138. He spotted MJ first since the girl was sitting opposite to the door. Peter was afraid she was going to be furious at him for being late, but to his surprise, she just shook her head in an all-too-familiar way and he already knew that she wasn't actually mad at him. He grinned at her apologetically and as a response she sighed and lifted up her science book in front of her face.

"Welcome, Mr. Parker," came the team's lead instructor, Mr. Harrington's voice from a podium and Peter just realized that he wasn't all alone in the room with MJ. About a dozen other students were sitting around, on top of desks, or laying back to walls – wow, this AcaDec thing was way less strict than he imagined – and oh shit, they were all looking at him.

He had to say something.

"Um, hi! Sorry, I'm late."

"Oh, never mind that five minutes," waved Mr. Harrington. Peter met the guy once before when he took the test to get accepted into the team. He seemed to be nice and weird. But most likely everyone was a bit weird here, including him. Which was good. He liked weird. "We're glad that you are joining us." Peter just nodded and when the instructor saw that he won't say anything else, he continued: "Um... We won't really take this session that seriously... Since Christmas is so close. I know y'all just wanna be home with your families already. I would want the same if my wife didn't leave me for that guy in her hiking group," he said jokingly to the team, but nobody laughed, so he just chuckled, a bit nervously. "So anyway, today we're just casually studying. No exercises or taking turns. You can do it alone, in pairs or in a group, it's your decision," he told Peter and gulped. It looked like Harrington was about to cry, so Peter just quickly nodded at him again, and headed towards MJ.

"Hey," he said with his usual wide grin as he dropped his bag down on a desk next to them. "Wanna do it in pairs?" he asked, a bit too nervous for his like.

"Hope you won't slow me down, Parker," she replied and shuffled in her seat so Peter would have some space next to her on top of the desk.

The boy accepted the offer and sat down there with his back to the wall. "I'd never do that to you," he grinned as he got out a book from his backpack and saw MJ shaking her head in the corner of his eye which only made him grin even wider.

Peter didn't really know how will this whole AcaDec practice go. The only reason he was there was, of course, MJ, but naturally, he was open to exercising, too. He just hoped that they will have a chance to talk and hang out one last time before they both traveled home for Christmas.

"So why are you not on Twitter?" he asked the question he was curious about ever since she gave him her number and not her "online address". However she didn't say a word, just silently pointed at his open book. _Wow, okay..._ A bit rude maybe, but they were there to study after all...

Peter did as MJ "asked" and started studying his book. It was a boring chapter, really, and besides, he wasn't mentally prepared for this at all. Maybe he was an idiot, but he never really thought about the studying aspect of AcaDec, but rather always the opportunity that he could spend time with MJ. His attention had shifted and he started zoning out at the wall opposite of them, thinking about a bunch of nonsense. When Michelle realized this she snapped her fingers and pointed at his book again. Right, right, they were there to study. Peter returned to his pages again, and they've spent the next half-hour like that. He was losing all hopes for a decent conversation when MJ suddenly closed her book and turned to him.

"Can you quiz me?" she asked and shifted closer to him, not even waiting for his answer.

"Um, yeah, sure," Peter replied with a dry mouth and took a big pile of cue cards from her. It was very lucky that he didn't need to use his brain for this sort of exercise because MJ was so, so painfully close to him, he couldn't think straight. It was exactly like on their couch during movie night a few weeks back.

Quizzing was going pretty well. Peter asked a question, and MJ answered it, usually with very little hesitation. It wasn't a conversation, but still... They were spending time together. Sometimes she took longer, and Peter couldn't help but love those occasions. The way she narrowed her eyes, and bit on her lips... Not like he was openly staring at her. Oh God, he wasn't, right? Either way, MJ didn't seem to mind it and that was definitely a good sign.

"Hey," she said at one point before Peter could ask his next question, and he instantly perked up. "Um. Sorry if I'm a bit strict or something... This stuff is important to me."

"No, no. It's okay," assured her Peter immediately. He very rarely heard MJ talk this... soft. Open up like that. It felt like his heart would melt because of how adorable it was, but she must not ever know that, or else she was gonna execute him. "I'm enjoying this," he smiled and shifted right to her side. Maybe he was too bold to do that, but she didn't move away and only that mattered. He didn't want to think through the whole thing, because that would surely make him lose all his nerves, so he quickly asked the next question instead.

It was remarkable how much MJ was able to keep her focus together when his brain would go totally blank by the feeling of their touching shoulders and arms and thighs... And the scent of her hair. What was that shampoo? Mango...? Anyway, she looked so collected, when he felt like he was all over the place. Like if their touching bodies weren't enough to drive her as crazy as they were driving him. But Peter didn't mind this at all. MJ was a pro at not displaying emotions and he didn't miss the fact that her response time got a bit slower, either.

They've spent the next half-an-hour like that. Sitting next to each other, answering cue cards and enjoying the other's company. As time passed, Peter was able to get a bit more relaxed. He laughed when MJ made a snarky comment, blushed when they passed the cards between themselves and their fingers met each other, and ultimately felt really great about the day. It felt like, things were going really good between them.

"I don't use Twitter, because I don't want the government to know my personal information," MJ said suddenly when only ten minutes were left of the class and everyone around them started chatting. She packed her cue cards and books while Peter was trying to make sense of this newest surprise of hers.

"I don't think that the..."

"You can say whatever you want Parker, but if the multis have our information, the government can also have it whenever it needs."

The girl didn't struck Peter as a conspiracy theorist, but now that he thought about it, it was very much aligned with her personality. Was it weird, that he somehow loved- liked her even more now?

"Okay," he held up his hands defensively. "I won't say anything... So you don't use social media at all?"

"Nope," she responded, popping the 'p'. "And neither should you." When Peter didn't reply – because honestly, what could he have said – she changed the topic: "So why were you late? For a second I thought you lost in the snow."

"Oh, yeah," laughed Peter, trying to joke his way out of a path at which's end he would have to tell MJ that he was late because of his secret, about what he still can't tell a word to her. "I had to sleep inside a Tauntaun halfway." MJ snorted at his Star Wars-reference which was honestly one of the best things he could ever hope from a girl – but not in a sad way, come on you guys.

"But seriously; why were you late?"

Shit. This AcaDec thing was truly important to her, wasn't it? Or was she just nitpicky? He couldn't tell. "You know... I was just late. Nothing special about it." MJ was looking at him pointedly, and he couldn't keep eye contact. God, why was she so good at observing, and he so bad at lying?

"The same 'secret' again?" she asked not too friendly, raising her eyebrows.

"I wouldn't really call that a secret," he said in a high-pitched voice, intensely rubbing on the back of his neck. It wasn't going too well.

"Then what would you call it, Peter?" Shit, she was serious.

Shit. Okay. What part could he tell her? ...Nothing. Great. Uh-oh, she was looking at him expectantly. He should say something. But what? He really didn't want to lie. But he couldn't tell the truth either.

MJ moved away from him, and he already missed her touch. "I mean, you told it to Ned," she accused him.

"Could you turn down the flirting, lovebirds?" asked a guy from the corner of the room, who was clearly eavesdropping. _Rude..._

"Hey, Flash?" asked back MJ, and when the guy looked up at her she simply just flipped him off.

"That guy's name's Flash?" asked Peter, partly with genuine surprise and partly with the intention of changing the subject of their conversation. It didn't work.

"Ned, out of all people?" she asked, seemingly not even hearing his question.

"Hey, Ned's a great friend! And I didn't tell him... He found out by an accident," Peter confessed reluctantly... Wait, did he just accidentally tell her that that was indeed a secret?

MJ looked into Peter's scared eyes with her own narrowed ones for a couple more seconds, but the boy didn't say anything more. Finally, she leaned back. "Okay," she said surprisingly casually. "Don't worry, you can have your secrets. I don't care."

Now Peter really had no idea what was going on. His brain needed more time to catch up with all the things she said.

"But don't be late from AcaDec next time," she added. "If you can't take this seriously, you shouldn't join the team."

Wait, what? When on Earth did they get this far in their conversation? Weren't they just sitting next to each other talking about Twitter two minutes ago?

Suddenly MJ stood up and grabbed her backpack. "Anyway, see you around, Nerd," she said. Wait, she was leaving? Peter hoped before that maybe they could leave together and have some more talking on their way. Was she angry with him now? It didn't seem like that. MJ was collected and cool as always. But, what happened then? Did she have a problem with his secret? Or maybe with him being late? Or did she actually have a problem at all? Before he could ask anything MJ just left the room, saying a "Merry New Year everyone," on her way. Peter was paralyzed.

"Yes, to you too, Michelle," came Mr. Harrington's confused voice from the podium, in spite that MJ was clearly not there anymore. "We still had... five minutes. But I suppose you can all leave now... We can allow ourselves to be a bit lazier when Christmas is on the corner, can't we?"

Everyone started packing, and Peter finally came out of his trans. Now he was sure something was wrong. That was the only sensible explanation for why he felt so guilty. _MJ! Shit!_ He grabbed his bag and ran out of the room.

He caught up to the girl easily.

"MJ!" She didn't stop, so he started walking beside her. "I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't do anything and it's your right to chose between two things." She sounded infuriatingly calm.

"But I can't. Look, I really wanna do this AcaDec thing... I was so happy when you invited me to the team," he admitted and felt a blush starting to appear on his cheeks already.

"Then stop doing the other thing," she suggested simply.

"I can't do that either," Peter replied, shaking his head. "That's important," he explained desperately. "Like, really serious."

"Well, then don't come to AcaDecs," she shrugged, like if it was the most convenient thing on Earth.

"But... I would really like to." Peter was practically pleading.

"Why is it so important for you?" Michelle asked, but he suspected she knew the answer already.

"Because... I like to spend time with you. I like you. MJ."

They stopped and her eyes widened for a moment but then returned to their usual, cool state.

"You have to choose which you want to do," she said, a bit softer than before. "Or at least tell me about the secret, so I can understand." That wasn't really the answer he was hoping for.

"MJ, please trust me. I really can't do that."

"Do you even realize how that sounds, Peter?!" she snapped and the boy found himself recoiling. "It's like you are doing something illegal."

"I'm not a criminal," Peter said silently the only thing he felt like he could.

Uncomfortable silence fell between them. There were so many things that should have been said, but neither of them did. They looked at each other, Peter with desperation, and MJ with expectance. She was the one to move first. She just walked away.

It felt like a punch in Peter's guts. Like he was crushed into the ground.


	7. Chapter 6 - Heavy Holidays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spider-Man always gets back up...

Peter was still on the ground in the next days.

He didn't speak with MJ since she left him after the AcaDec practice. He wanted to write to her or to call her countless times, but he didn't know what could he have said. Not telling her about his secret identity clearly didn't work. He could lie about it, but... Like, come on: he couldn't. Not to MJ. So that left him with the last option, that he told her the truth. It was tempting. He wanted to do it so many times, he even found himself with MJ's contact opened on his cell on occasions. He was one tap away from calling her and telling her everything... But he could never bring himself to it. If MJ knew about who he was, she would constantly be in potential danger. That, he couldn't bear. Not a chance.

How will he have a future life with anyone, while he has this secret?

Peter traveled home to May for the Holidays and tried to put on a happy face for her, but it was miserable, really. He went to bed feeling lonely and guilty and got up with newfound desperation every night and morning. He saw no way out of the situation.

He had no idea what to do. He knew he should have told it to May long ago because she was always amazing with advice, but he just didn't want to talk about it. Not yet... It felt like he was the bad guy in the situation, but in reality, he couldn't tell if that was true or not, so he was just wasting away, day to night, thinking about what could he have done differently, and how could he solve the problem. Needless to say, he got no good ideas at all.

Sometimes he tried to distract his thoughts. He tried watching movies, but that didn't really work, so then he tried reading a book, but that just reminded him of MJ, so at the end, he always wound up curling up on his bed, listening to Boulevard Of Broken Dreams and other generic said music. Just facing the ceiling, zoning out, eating cookies, and not thinking about anything at all. That was possibly the only good way to deal with the situation. He was on the ground, indeed.

Christmas Eve found him sitting at their dinner table with May and Happy – the man started visiting them during the holidays in the last couple of years – fixing his eyes on the dish in front of him, and catching little parts of the two adult's conversation.

"...Peter?"

"Yeah? Um... Yeah, sorry, what?" he asked, looking up at them, not even knowing which one of them called his name.

"What's got into you, kid?" asked Happy, frowning. "I haven't seen you this quiet since... Never, actually."

"He won't talk about it," answered May softly instead of Peter. She was fixing her eyes on his face and Peter felt like she was seeing right through him. "I've tried everything, but he is in a bad mood."

"There's a girl I really like, and she is angry with me," confessed Peter. It was about time he talked about it, and he already felt a bit better, just saying it out loud. Not much better, though. And was it really a good idea to tell it to them...? It was Christmas after all. They should have all been happy, instead of minding his private little problems.

"Okay, I'm gonna pretend that didn't hurt," responded May, nodding.

"Sorry I didn't tell it to you before," apologized Peter. "I wanted to forget about it, and have a nice Christmas with you..."

"Aw, sweetheart," cooed May. "You should have told me the day you arrived."

"Why is this girl angry with you?" asked Happy before Peter could say anything.

"Well... She knows that I'm doing something. And also, that it's a secret. But I can't tell her what it is, so she can't understand why it's so important, and now she's getting mad whenever I'm late or something and I won't tell her the reasons."

"You are late from your classes? Because you are out in the streets in that suit?!" snapped at him May, when she heard his explanation. So much for help and support...

"No, it's... Not from the classes, this was –"

"We've talked about this on the phone, kid," interrupted him Happy pointedly. "You have to focus on your studies!"

What, was Happy his father now, or something? And why did he even decided to talk about MJ when he was there? _Come on Peter, that's rude..._ But really, when did the world become this crazy?

"Yeah, what exactly were you two doing together, when you called me that night?" struck back Peter, so they would talk about something else before he snapped at them. He was a grown man, he had the right to determine when was he able to go out and save some people as Spider-Man. And besides, that was not important now at all.

Also, he was interested in this question anyway. Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – Happy seemed to be less talkative now.

"Okay, we don't have to talk about all this right now," said May to both of them with pointed looks and everyone seemed to be satisfied by that idea in their own ways. "Tell me about the girl," she asked Peter with curiosity and excitement.

Right. Maybe that was a good idea. "She's called Michelle. MJ. That's her nickname... She's awesome," he sighed at his dish, thinking about her. "Super cool and smart and funny and beautiful and... We met in a class." He realized he was just rambling now, but he didn't want to stop. "She was reading. She loves books. Like, more than anyone, I've ever met. But she also likes stuff, I'm into... So we had some good talks. I don't know... We are just getting to know each other I guess. But it's definitely not good that she already knows I'm keeping a secret from her, and that it's a big one."

Peter sighed again and finally looked up at May and Happy. His aunt was smiling ear-to-ear, and that surprised him. He just told her that everything was screwed up and all hope was lost.

"Why didn't you tell me about her before?" asked May as she stood up and started clearing the table for the next dish.

"I don't know. I- I haven't really known her for that long," answered Peter while he handed her his plate and watched her walk into their kitchen to prep the next huge pile of food, she ordered earlier that day. "I guess I just didn't really think about telling it to you then. I mean before I was sure what was going on between us," he said, raising his voice so she would still hear him from the next room.

"Hey, kid! You weren't looking at her like... in an inappropriate way?" whispered Happy, leaning closer to him over the table.

Peter didn't even know why, but he found himself following suit and also leaning in to rush out his answer in a whisper: "What? What do you mean?"

"Looking at... certain parts." Oh, God. Did he actually think he was a peeper? "Objectifying her?"

"No! Happy, no," he frowned, shaking his head in disbelief over his question. "Not at all! Why would you even think that?"

"Sure? You can be honest with me," he assured him. "I won't tell it to May."

"No, I wasn't!" Peter said firmly. "And could we please change the subject? This is... just stupid."

Happy looked at him in silence, probably thinking about how to respond, and then finally leaned back in his seat. Thank God... "Good. Because that wouldn't be nice, you know? You shouldn't do that."

"Yeah," nodded Peter with an agreeing smile. "Thanks for the advice, Happy."

"What advice?" asked May as she came back from the kitchen, placing a big bowl of pudding onto the middle of the table.

"Oh, nothing, just... boy talk," avoided the answer Happy. May glanced at Peter questioningly, and he sent her back a 'nothing important' look, with a little twitch of his head. His aunt was the only person with whom he could communicate like that, understanding one another by the smallest signs of body language. He missed this feeling – he suddenly realized.

"So you had an argument with MJ," she said, sitting down to the table. "But that's all right, Peter. People argue all the time."

"Yeah, I know." Of course, he knew, he wasn't a five-year-old... Hey, he was being rude again. Maybe this whole thing stressed him out a bit too much. "But this was... big. She's really mad at me," he said and his mood instantly dropped by two bars.

"Okay, so... What happened? What did you say to her?" asked May, clearly trying to help him somehow.

"Nothing!" defended himself instinctively Peter. "I told her that I can't tell her what am I doing. I apologized... I told her that I liked her." Getting no response to that confession still burned somewhere deep inside Peter's chest.

"And what did she say to that?"

"Nothing," the boy replied bitterly. "She said that I should choose between my secret and that Academic Decathlon team, she invited me to. And something about how it sounds like I'm doing something illegal."

May thought about her next answer for some time. Peter and Happy waited for her in silence.

"Did you talk since then? Try to solve this, somehow?" she asked finally.

"No," sighed Peter, hiding his head behind his palms. "I don't think there is any way to solve it... I thought through this many times," he explained. "There is just no way out."

"What about telling her that you are Spider-Man?" she asked so casually as if she had just said, _have some more pudding, Peter_. (That pudding was delicious, he wanted to have some more...)

Both Peter and Happy looked up at her with wide-open eyes. She couldn't be serious. The boy was the first to talk. "No way," he said. "There's no way. Not a chance."

"But -"

"I couldn't tell her," he interrupted May. "I thought about it, yes. But I just couldn't tell her."

"Hear me out, Peter," his aunt told her with a pointed look.

"Actually I'm with the boy here, May," Happy interjected and that earned him a stare too, from the willful woman at the other side of the table.

"And it wouldn't even solve anything," Peter added. "She said she's okay with the secret. She was angry with me because I was late from the practice."

"Shut up, the both of you!" raised his voice rather annoyed May, and they both decided it was better to stay silent for a while. "Has it ever actually occurred to you, Peter, that she might not tell you the truth?" Well... MJ was nearly impossible to read, he had to give that to May. "Of course, she's not okay with the secret. How would you feel if she had a secret that she wasn't ever gonna tell you about?" _Bad. Real bad._

Okay, maybe May had a point there. But still... "I just can't tell her," Peter said in a low voice. "I can't put her in danger like that."

May just rolled her eyes. "Peter," she started, as if she was talking to a kid who was being complicated. Maybe he was being complicated... "I know that you mean good, but think about it realistically. Please... I know your secret, right?"

"Yeah, but -"

"And have I ever been in danger because of that?"

"No," Peter started reluctantly, but he couldn't continue.

"Happy knows about it," his aunt pointed at the man. "And he is fine. Ned knows about it," she added before he could say anything. "Is he all right?"

"Wait, who is Ned?" Happy asked confused, but no-one answered him.

"Yeah, he is," Peter agreed unwillingly.

"Look, Peter," May said softly. "You said MJ was smart. And don't take it as an offense, but you are pretty bad at keeping secrets. If you spent some more time together, one day you would show up in your costume and she would find out. Or if not, maybe she could even figure it out on her own. Anyway, it's not good to find out about something like this by an accident," she said knowingly. Yeah. Peter still remembered that afternoon when she accidentally saw him without his mask and started arguing and fighting with him about it. And that evening. And that night. It was a long argument...

"So my advice is; I think you should clear up your feeling about MJ. If you are serious about this, you should tell her the truth. I know it must be hard," she added, seeing Peter's expression, "but this is for the better, trust me. Once you told him, and if she is serious about you too, everything will get better, I'm sure." Well, Peter wasn't sure about that. He knew that May gave him his heartfelt advice, but she didn't know MJ. "But if she's just one girl, and you feel the slightest uncertainty about her, leave her alone," May told him with sad softness in her eyes. "That will be the best for both of you. In the long run."

Yes, maybe May didn't know MJ, but she knew a lot. His aunt was wise, Peter knew it. He didn't like it one bit, but he already knew that she was right. He felt it more than he knew it. And he also knew that he was serious about MJ. She wasn't just one girl. He will definitely think through this about a hundred more times in the next days, but he knew that his conclusion will be the same every time. He couldn't argue with his aunt's reasoning. And definitely not with his own conscience. He had to tell it to MJ. That was the only way.


	8. Chapter 7 - 00:00

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve is an absolutely pointless holiday and the only advantage of it is that you can at least have a fairly good party. This has nothing to do with the chapter by the way. Just my thoughts.

It was 11:38 PM, and Peter didn't enjoy himself at all. Considering that he was in a party almost full of strangers that wasn't so surprising. Considering that he was in a party at all was enough on its own to prove that statement. He was never a big party-guy. Mostly because he was never invited to them. Okay, that was not entirely true, but he was in a bad mood right now, okay?

Because, yeah, it was a long night already. He only arrived back at campus a couple hours ago, and he wasn't planning on going to any party at all. He tried to call MJ – three times, actually – but she never answered. They didn't talk since she walked away from him after AcaDec, and Peter hoped he could finally confess everything tonight. Not on phone, of course, but he had to set up a meeting somehow and all...

After his third failed call-attempt, Ned was finally able to convince him to go to a party. His friend desperately wanted to meet up with new people – girls, mostly (only) – and this was a really good opportunity, he had to give him that. Besides, what kind of best friend would he be, if he didn't even play the role of the wingmate when it was needed. He saw a couple seasons of _How I Met Your Mother_ , he knew how it was.

Still, what finally convinced him to go was that maybe they could run into MJ. This argument was made by Ned, and while Peter knew that the possibility of MJ showing up at the same party as them, let alone in any party was about 3,720 to 1, he still thought it was worth a shot. It was New Year's Eve after all. And he had nothing else to do.

So there he was, sitting on the couch with Ned and a bit tipsy girl called Paige in a poorly lit room of a stranger's house, listening to music tracks he had never heard before and sipping on some beer from a red paper cup. The beer tasted quite good actually, which was surprising, considering he never liked beer. But no one put anything in his glass he was sure. He made a big deal out of opening the bottle and pouring it into the cup himself.

Time didn't fly at all. Especially since he introduced Ned to Paige – like a good wingmate did – and was now completely alone on that couch. Well, almost completely alone. A blonde girl sat down next to him for about five minutes (or maybe half-an-hour, who knows) earlier, and she was constantly talking ever since. She was annoying. A lot. On any other day, Peter would have tried to socialize and engage in a conversation with her, and hey, maybe she was actually a nice girl. But not today.

He came here with the hope that maybe he could somehow find MJ. That was exactly why he and Ned chose this party because it was the most well-known and far the biggest on the whole campus. That was almost the only reason he decided not to stay home that night. Listening to the ramblings of a half-drunk girl was definitely not on his list. It might have been a mistake to go there.

He looked to his left and saw that Ned was still chatting with Paige, though he didn't seem so content himself. He checked his phone. Still no incoming calls... And it was already 11:55? How did that happen? Maybe time felt to go slow but actually went fast when someone was in a party. Was that a thing? Anyway, it was almost midnight. He had to accept that he should have already given up all hopes to talk with MJ that night. Maybe next year...

He couldn't help but smirk at his own stupid joke when suddenly chill run through his spine and his whole nervous system exploded for a quick second in an all-too-familiar way. He instantly jerked up his head, which scared the blonde girl next to him so much that she even stopped talking for two or three seconds, but Peter didn't care about that at all anymore, because MJ just entered the room. This could not be real. The chances of actually bumping into her that night... It was out of this world. Maybe it was the will of the Universe or something. It had to be, right? Because no way he was just this lucky. He was never lucky.

Time slowed down as always, as he was watching her enter the room. She wore a yellow skirt, a white top with a black farmer jacket over it and combat boots. It was just so _Michelle_. The most unusual and the coolest thing he had ever seen. The best part was always how confident she could be in the outfits she was comfortable in. It wasn't even confidence, she was... just herself. Peter shamelessly watched her walk into the room and look around. When she spot him he waved at her and she waved back but didn't make any intent to walk up to him and make contact when clearly, she knew no one else in the room. Ouch.

Peter was about to stand up and approach her when someone started counting _'ten-nine-eight...'_ and in an instant, the whole room joined in. "Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!" shouted everybody, including one half-hearted Peter. He wanted to turn to Ned and clink glasses – or more precisely paper cups – with him when the blonde girl on his right quickly put down her empty glass and kissed Peter on his lips.

Okay... No. What? No, no, no, no, no, no. No. He jerked back as soon as he realized that the obstacle covering his mouth, was indeed another mouth. It took him about a second.

That was not supposed to happen. Definitely not in front of MJ. He looked around in the room, desperately searching for her eyes. She was nowhere. Disappeared already. Oh, God, she didn't see what happened, right? Peter had a bad feeling about this.

He shot a shocked, questioning glance at Ned, eyebrows raised all the way above his temple, but his friend looked just as surprised as him. The girl – Paige – had disappeared since the last time he checked on them, he realized, but he had more urgent problems than that right now. He had to go and find MJ.

"Um..." Peter turned back to the blonde girl, who was practically above him, blocking all escape routes to safety. The boy sank back into the couch as much as he could, wishing his superpowers included the ability to move through solid objects. "Look, I–. You must be a very nice girl, and... Thank you for the kiss. And all," he stuttered, as he was trying to slide down of the couch, right under her stretched arm above his chest and escape to the freedom of the floor. The operation was successful. "But. I'm interested in someone else," he continued, standing up and turning back to face her. "So... Yeah. Sorry. Um, have you met Ned?"

Look he wasn't proud of it, but he had to throw him under the bus to save himself this time. He needed his wingmate, and he knew Ned would understand. Peter shot an apologetic glance at his friend and turned back before either of them could say anything to him.

All right. Now he just had to find MJ.

First, he headed straight to the next room, where she came from before the countdown. She didn't seem to be there either. But, of course, how could he really tell with his 1,73 – average – height and in the never-ending sea of people's heads.

"Hey, sorry, didn't you see a girl coming through here?" he asked the closest guy. That sounded very dumb. Great, now they all must think he's an idiot. "I mean. A girl in a black jacket." The guy and some of his friends just shrugged and he already lost hopes but still added: "Yellow skirt..." This was a useless idea.

Okay, next step. Maybe she left. Let's go out.

Peter left through the main door, heart clasping, and he spotted the back of a yellow skirt and a black jacket. This had to be his luckiest unlucky day.

"MJ!" he shouted and the girl turned back. He ran up to her and his face started burning already in the chilly January night.

"What's up?" she asked casually. She didn't seem disturbed. Maybe she didn't see the kiss. On the other hand, she always looked this collected... The kiss wasn't important now anyway.

"You left," he said because he didn't know where to start.

"Yeah," she agreed, looking back at the building. "It was a lame party."

"I didn't know you went to parties."

"I didn't. Momentary insanity," she explained and Peter decided that was fair enough. "So... Any particular reasons why you ran after me and now keep me out here, in the cold night?"

"Yeah," Peter pointed at her affirmingly. Right, he came after her for a reason. Why was it always so hard to think and talk with her at the same time? "I, uh... Um, I tried to call you." He realized he was rocking back-and-forth and forced himself to stop.

"Did you?" She seemed genuinely surprised, checking on his phone. "Yeah, I must have missed these cuz the loud music... It is a lame party," she added again, probably not even believing she decided to check it out.

"Yeah, so... I was hoping we could talk."

"We are talking." Yeah, good point.

Okay. So, right. How does he do this? "Look, Michelle, I..." What should he do with his hands? He decided to put them in his pockets. "I'm sorry. For, you know, what happened after AcaDec."

"Never mind that. I told you Loser already, it's your decision what you want to do. I don't care." Peter suspected she wanted to sound nice, or at least affirming but, _ouch._ Also, he was kinda hoping they would talk about how he told her that he liked her and she didn't reply anything, instead of this decision thing. Why was he assuming that? Because he didn't think through this properly and on top of that because he was dumb. That's why.

"But we didn't talk all Christmas..."

"I don't talk to people. That's not my thing."

Peter tilted his head sideways and gazed at her with a look that hopefully came across as "bullshit". It's true, MJ wasn't very talkative, but they _were_ talking before that whole AcaDec thing. Like real conversations and all. Then they had that argument and now she acted like nothing had happened. There had to be more to this.

What should he say now? It didn't seem like she was going to talk. But he already said sorry, and he even told her that he liked her – it seemed like she decided that that never happened though. Ouch, again.

Then he suddenly remembered what May advised him. If he was serious, he had to tell her the whole truth. He looked at her, in her very-MJ outfit, her curly hair with the loose locks in front of her right eye he liked so much, and her bag that was probably containing a book, because yeah, MJ would totally go to a New Year's Eve party with a book. In all honesty, he made up his mind already, right after May did her wise-speech, but he was never more sure than at that moment.

Why were his legs so shaky now? It must have been because of the cold. _Peter!_ "MJ I'm Spider-Man," he rushed out, breathing out a huge cloud of mist into the cold night air.

She stopped moving, and Peter realized this was the first-ever time he saw her in surprise. It looked cute. "Wait, what?" she asked almost inaudible.

"I'm Spider-Man," he said again, sounding surprisingly casual about it.

"Nah, you're not Spider-Man." She shook her head, her mouth curling up into a smile.

"Yes... I am."

"I would've figured that out," she protested, sounding confused and less-and-less confident. "I mean, I've been watching you, for like a while now." She had been watching him?

It wasn't important. Not now, of course. Otherwise, it was very important. He wasn't done yet.

"I'm Spider-Man," he assured her one more time. "That's why I never told you about where I was before. It's not safe. And also... That's why I wanna stop it." He never thought through this, he just said out loud what he was sure he felt. "I just want to go to classes and AcaDec and movie night, like a normal kid, you know? And, I mean, there's less crime here, than in New York. If something big happened, I would go and help of course. But apart from that, the police are just as good as me." Now he was just rambling. Stop it! "So... That's it, I think," he laughed nervously. "I choose AcaDec over the other thing," he nodded confidently. "Because I want to spend more time with you," he added less confidently. MJ still didn't move and he had no idea if that meant good or bad.

***

Okay, first and foremost: No, he didn't look like a cold, wet puppy from the other side of a door, waiting for her to let him in. He didn't.

Second: Maybe he was actually Spider-Man. It's not like she never thought about that possibility before, it just wasn't the most plausible explanation. Damn, if he just gave her a little more time. She could have figured it out and then told him when he was least expecting it. That would have been a sight... Yeah, of course she was trying to figure out his secret. A) because occupational hazard – she was observant, and B) because she had to know why was he always late, and decided to go to random places the most inconvenient times. Fine, and maybe C) because it wasn't that bad to sometimes just look at him over her books or laptop. But mostly the first two.

Also, point C was exactly why she finally decided to pay less attention to the loser. It's not like she didn't have a crush before, but those previous occasions never made her want to do things, she would have never even thought about before. Like hug them from the back, run a hand through their hair, or... See, that's exactly what she meant. She was emotionally compromised. She had to take a few steps back, so yeah, maybe she was overreacting the whole secret-situation before the Christmas break. Hey, she didn't enjoy it, but she needed time and space and her room to reconsider, and for that, she won't apologize.

It's not like she wanted to live her life alone. Well, not all the time at least. But she wasn't really good at getting close to people. Or lucky for that matter... Then he told her that he liked her, which was very nice, and she was a real asshole for ignoring that, but again; won't apologize. Then she spent his whole break contemplating the situation but came back as indecisive as she left. It was a hard case, okay? An important one. Because she liked him, too. But after all this, she wasn't even sure he still liked her... So then she saw in the party as Betty Brant – that blonde scourge of God who was probably one of the nicest people she will ever know, which is just infuriating – her roommate kissed him, and she was like, _all-right, this is settled then_. But then right after it, he came after her and told her what was probably the biggest secret of his nerdy life.

So here comes the third point: Because he didn't just tell her that he was Spider-Man – Which, by the way, wasn't that big of a deal, really. Nowadays you could bump into a superhero left-and-right... He was her first, though. – but he told her that he practically wanted to choose her over doing the overly theatrical red-blue-spandex stupid bravado thing. And that was just messed up in every possible level.

Knowing the dork, being Spider-Man was probably considered the best thing that ever happened to him by him. And though the idea of a guy giving up the most important thing of his life for her really appealed to her, it wasn't just about that. Inconveniently colored coverall and unnecessary bravado aside, Peter was doing a good thing out there. Well as far as she could tell. She wasn't giving that much thought to superheroes lately, but she supposed he was saving lives and the other generic hero-stuff. Which, no matter the theatricals was a good thing. Something he shouldn't give up for her. You can say whatever you want, somewhere deep down she still had a soul.

How did he even come up with this? He was a good guy, he wouldn't just throw away all those lives he could save one day for her, right? Maybe he wasn't serious and was just trying to appeal to her... But no, he wouldn't lie about something as important as this. He could be painfully earnest when it mattered. The most likely scenario was that he didn't even think through this at all. That would explain everything, yeah. She suspected that if she wanted him, he would stay true to his word, but that would definitely hurt him in the long run. He couldn't give up being Spider-Man.

"No," she said and his expression fell. It took her a lot of effort not to jump at him and comfort his disappointed-ass with a hug. She mentally shook her head. _Come on, stay strong, Jones..._ "You can't do that, you dork."

"Yes, I can," he confirmed, nodding rapidly, which was just- _Oh, come on!_ "I will never be late again, I swear," he said, raising his right hand in the air and putting his left on his heart. It wasn't cute. He looked like a loser. He did. "And I'm gonna be useful, I know a lot about science."

Nerd...

"It's not about AcaDec," she explained. "You can't stop being Spider-Man for me. Being this selfish would definitely vaporize that little part what's left of my soul." He snorted, and no, that wasn't the cutest- _Oh, damn it!_ She must have been around Peter so much that she unintentionally caught some of his feelings. He had way too much of those.

"No, I made up my mind already," he said, wildly shaking his head. "You were right, I had to choose."

"No, I wasn't!" protested MJ. This idiot was going to ruin his future in front of her eyes if she didn't do something about it. "I just said that Parker, so you would give me some space to think. I don't give a damn if you are five minutes late from AcaDec." Okay, that was just partially true. She would still kick his ass if he was late again.

She recognized a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. Good. Uncertain Parker was easier to guide. "But I already told you that I'm Spider-Man. You will be in danger if I don't quit," he mumbled, clearly trying to sound convincing and reasonable. This whole 'you can't know me or you are in danger' thing was exactly that kind of unnecessary overreaction she found ridiculous. She will just be very fine, thank you.

"Well, you will be in danger if you quit, because I'm gonna go after you, Loser," she told him. He smirked and she had to look elsewhere to not smile back at him. She had way too many feelings for that night already.

He didn't protest so it seemed like the hero thing was finally settled. Good.

"So it's okay if I still do the Spider-Man-stuff and go to AcaDec at the same time?" he asked slowly. Damn, could he be slow sometimes.

"You catch on quick, Parker," she commented and he smirked again. Screw that smirk. And that boy, for that matter. "It's fine by me," she added, just to make sure. He seemed pleased. More than pleased. If he had had a tail he would have definitely been wagging it. It was way too easy to imagine that for her like.

Anyway. Time to call it a night before things were to escalate too quickly.

"So... you were watching me?" he asked sheepishly. Well, they escalated, didn't they? Damn her, why did she tell him that? Momentary insanity again, she supposed. Yeah, let's settle on that.

She wanted to say something like 'Don't get your hopes up, Nerd' or maybe 'I'm watching everyone. I'm observant' but she couldn't bring herself to that. After all the things he told her, he deserved the truth. Or maybe some version of truth. Even though, she was fairly certain it was a bad idea.

"Maybe," she said surprisingly quiet, and it earned him a wide grin from the boy. She couldn't help but smile back at him this time. Just a little. She realized how pretentious she was, talking about unnecessary theatricals and then getting all sappy with a guy in the backyard of a campus building in the middle of the night. They were probably one step away from him offering her his jacket, but that would have actually been the end of their night. Still, it felt good. Smiling back at him.

"Can I... walk you home?" he asked hesitantly, and his eyes looked dangerously close to a puppy's.

"I literally live five minutes from here," she laughed, maybe a little too nervous. Instead of having the usual, sarcastic edge in her voice, she sounded weak and distant. Suddenly it was hard to talk. Her legs were twitchy, her stomach was heavy and her mouth felt dry... What was happening to her body?! Well, one thing was certain, it was his fault. "But, yes... Let's go," she added. Hey, she was feeling weird, but she never said it was bad-weird. So yeah, she might as well...

"So do you have any questions?" the boy asked as they started walking.

"Questions?" she asked back, confused. Was she missing something?

"Yeah, like... About me, being Spider-Man?" he explained.

"No," she replied simply and she meant it. She was happy to leave the hero stuff to him. He probably wasn't expecting this answer though. And to be fair, they weren't talking about anything now. How could this silence be awkward, when they had previously spent hours together in silence, her, reading a book, and him, doing his own stuff? Great, well done Michelle. See, this is what happens when you allow yourself to feel something. She was slowly becoming awkward-Parker.

Their hands brushed to one another as they were walking and she felt electricity jolting through her arm. She quickly pulled it back and Peter did the same, which was obviously awkward but also a bummer because now she kinda wanted to hold his hand.

Damn it.

They kept walking in silence and those were the moments that later, during recalling the events of the night, she realized were kind of a "turning point" in her attitude. The point where she started thinking less and feeling more – something she deeply disapproved of and did very, _very_ rarely. Almost only during depressing movies, and even then only when she was completely alone. So yeah, it wasn't really her strong suit. One more reason to not do it in front of other people. And still, she did it in front of Peter... Maybe she was too tempted. Or just felt safe with him (the dork was Spider-Man after all). She couldn't tell the next day. And what was even more unusual, it didn't bother her that she couldn't tell. She just didn't care. At least that was usual. She was a pro at not giving a damn.

She was excited. Excited and happy. She enjoyed spending time with him.

Then she remembered seeing him kissing Betty Brant, and now it somehow seemed much more disturbing than before. Maybe her mind was designed to be unable to feel happy for too long... She had to know what had happened between the two of them. Though, she couldn't just casually mention it. Damn, if she had arrived just two minutes earlier to that party, she could have actually seen what was going on.

Then another question popped into her mind. "Hey, um..." God, it was impossible to get used to her voice, not sounding the way she wanted it to sound. "Do you remember when we were just getting to know each other and I asked why did you choose Brandon's class? And you said, um... that you thought it could be good if someone was a bit weird?"

"Yeah," he replied, looking up at her a little surprised. Well, he probably wasn't expecting a question like that. "Why?" he added.

"How did you mean?"

He started playing with the sleeve of his shirt and they arrived in front of her building. "Well... I guess... I was hoping he would be a good teacher. And a good person... You don't really see weirdo bullies," he shrugged. "But they are nice. And honest... About themselves and like, everything."

"Okay," she said thoughtfully.

"Okay?" laughed Peter questioningly, but he didn't ask anything else and that was good.

"Yeah, okay," she replied with a little smile starting to form on her lips and the topic was closed.

Anyway, that was a really good answer, he gave her. She appreciated that he took the question seriously. It was one of those few things that mattered.

Peter was stepping constantly from one of his legs onto the other, taking heavy breaths, probably to fight the cool air of the January night, and then suddenly he just rushed out: "I want to kiss you."

For the second time that evening, the boy caught her off-guard. She would have never thought he had the courage to initiate something like that himself. To be fair, he started blushing already... But yeah, she wanted to kiss him, too. Quite a lot, actually. There was something in his gaze, how he furtively tried to glance down at her lips from time to time. She looked down at his, too. Yeah, she definitely wanted to kiss him.

She could have had so many different, witty responses, but she shut down those voices. Maybe not even consciously. Maybe it was the beating of her heart that repressed all the other sounds in her head. She didn't think – she did that enough, anyway – just stepped forward, leaned in and kissed him on his lips, before all her strength could have left her. She still couldn't think, she just felt it. A heartbeat and he kissed her back. Another two and it was over already.

She opened her eyes and Peter's puppy dog ones looked straight back at her from just inches away. She swallowed. The surprise in his gaze started to turn into beaming and she smiled back at him.

"I like you too," she said before she could even think about it. Yeah, she was definitely turning into Parker. "I'm sorry that I... acted all weird after AcaDec. I–I needed time. To think."

"You like me?" was all he asked, and she wondered if he had heard anything at all of what she said after that.

"Are you actually that dumb?"

"I... Um..."

He looked way too cute when he was dumb. And way too cute at just about any time for that matter. But also, he was an absolute idiot. That was probably nature, compensating.

"Yeah, I like you, dork," she said because the helpless, blank expression on his face was too much to bear. "But don't make me say that again."

"I won't," he promised, a little overenthusiastically, perking up, now that he was probably sure, he heard her right. "I–I like you too," he added affirmingly. Yeah, no shit.

A witty answer was already on the tip of her tongue, but in the last second, she decided to stay silent. It was better to just be looking at him. His beaming smile, and his dumb eyes, overflowing with happiness. She loved looking into those dumb, earnest eyes – gosh, did she really just admitted that to herself? She thought she did.

"So what was that thing, with Betty?" she asked lastly. She didn't feel insecure about it, she was just curious.

"Um... With who?" he asked back with a blank expression, most likely still processing her question.

"With Betty. Betty Brant?" she tried, but it looked like it didn't ring any bells. "The blond girl."

"Oh..." _Oh, yes oh._ "You saw that," he said or maybe asked. It was hard to determine. "I–I didn't ask for that, I swear, she just jumped at me," he rushed to explain with deep red ears. "She was constantly talking to me all night, and I think she was a little tipsy too, and I totally don't care for her... I mean, she's not... If–if anything, she was actually a bit annoying and-"

"Yeah, I can kinda see that," she interjected because while it was entertaining to watch Peter awkwardly stuttering and bumbling, she felt like she should have taken pity on him already. "Hey, don't worry," she continued, poking him with her elbow. Even that small connection made her insides go crazy for a second. "I'm not mad or anything... Just curious."

"You're not?" he asked with relief and uncertainty.

"Nope," she shrugged looking back at him in the eyes. "I'm not." She smiled at him, and he smiled at her, and look, she knew they were being pointlessly cheesy all over the place, but she didn't give a damn about your opinion.

"So how do you know her? I mean... Betty."

"She's my roommate," she explained.

"What?" Peter's eyes widened. "Annoying Roommate? That's her?" He was almost laughing, though she didn't really know why. It might have had to do something with his inner nine-year-old...

"Yeah. She always wants to talk, calls me her bf... And she never stops smiling. God, she's always smiling... She's the most positive person I've ever known." She hated her. Also, Peter was openly laughing now. "What, Nerd?"

"Nothing, I just... I mean, I didn't expect her to be like this."

"Then what did you expect?" she asked, a bit annoyed. Betty was a serious problem. Though, she didn't mind listening to Peter's laugh that much.

"I don't know, like... somebody different."

"Well, she is who she is," she said, sighing. "Anyway, I'm going to go now... You look cold. And I'm cold..." She wasn't rude, not inviting him in right? Nah, she wasn't. He was not there yet.

"Yeah, it's um... a cold night," he approved. Indeed, it was a cold night.

"Yeah, it is." And there goes awkward again. They should have probably already cut it short by that point. "Night."

"Yeah, um..." Peter stepped closer to her and kissed her on her lips. It was even shorter than the one before, but her heart probably didn't know that because it was exploding the same way it did then. Yeah, Peter Parker just kissed her... And his face was bright red again. And they might have looked awkward but who cares when it was so great. "Night," he said so thin-voiced, he almost sounded scared.

She nodded a little and quickly disappeared behind the building's door, looking back at him one last time. This night was a lot already. More feelings than she had in the entire year before. She wanted to think through the events of it at least a dozen times again. Still, as she finally moved and headed to the stairs, her brain went blank and could only picture Peter's dumb, smiley face, and how he was totally still standing in front of the door where she left him, with that same expression. She couldn't help but grin herself, too.


	9. Epilogue

Guys!

This fic is officially over. I'm extremely proud of myself! As I've said in the beginning, I never before was able to stick around with one "big" story for more than about 4.000 words. And now I did it! It took a bit longer than I expected, but who cares? I had a lot of fun with it, and I intend to continue it with a _Part 2_ , or something. I haven't figured out all the details yet, and I'm not even 100% sure that I will, in fact, do it. So don't take it as a promise, but I sure wanna continue it at this moment. Because Peter and MJ are so, so great and fun together. I love them through and through.

By the way, this Epilogue is essentially just an "Author's Note", same as Prologue was. It contains no story bits, so feel free to skip it, if you want to. The only reason I titled it Epilogue is that it sounds much better than Author's Note.

So, all this stuff out of the way, there's actually only one more thing I wanna talk about: all the little easter eggs and references, I hid in the story. They are mostly from Star Wars and I'm obsessed with easter eggs, so I can't just walk away without pointing them all out. I know, I'm very cool.

Anyway, this is where the fun begins!

_Late from a Lecture:_

  * Room 501, where Peter meets MJ for the first time is a nod to the 501st Clone Legion
  * The time 16:20 is just a coincidence I realized long after I wrote it down. 420



_Chocolate Chip Emergency:_

  * Peter and Ned's dorm room is the 327th, a number commonly appearing in Star Wars movies
  * Peter tells the thugs he fought that they are shooting like stormtroopers. I guess that's an obvious one.



_Ambivalent AcaDec:_

  * The AcaDec practice is in room 1138, which is another number commonly appearing in Star Wars movies. Actually it's also an easter egg in Star Wars itself, to THX1138, an earlier movie of George Lucas
  * Peter jokes to MJ that he got lost in the snow and had to sleep in a Tauntaun. That's the animal Luke sleeps inside when he gets lost in a snowstorm with Han in The Empire Strikes Back



_00:00:_

  * At the beginning of the chapter, the time is 11:38, another nod to 1138
  * Peter thinks the odds of him, bumping into MJ in a party is 3,720 to 1, the possibility of successfully navigating through an asteroid field according to C-3PO in The Empire Strikes Back
  * Peter "has a bad feeling about this" when Betty kisses him in front of MJ, a line appearing in every Star Wars movie in some form
  * Peter's height is 1.73, the height of Tom Holland's. (Finally a hero I can relate to)
  * MJ tells Peter that she has been watching him for a while, the same line she tells him in Far From Home



And that's all, I think. Now that you finally know how much of a nerd I actually am, I feel ready to close this story. Thank you for all the stars, kudos, votes, reads, comments or whatever you did! I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did.


End file.
